Worst of Times
by chezchuckles
Summary: Finale didn't happen. Castle gets the nerve to ask Beckett on a first date, but bodies have a way of showing up at the worst of times. Happy Birthday to Carolina17! WARNING: Violence and angst. SPOILERS for 3XK. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Worst of Times

**In honor of Carolina17's birthday. Happy birthday, babe! You're the best.**

* * *

><p>"You can either be the guy who makes my life easier, or the guy who makes my life harder." -Kate Beckett Season 1, Episode 1<p>

* * *

><p>Sitting on the other side of the interrogation table from Detective Beckett, Richard Castle's first thought? Let him be both.<p>

Second thought? Much the same as the first, but in vivid pictures of just how hard he can be, just how easy she can be. There are handcuffs involved in that one too.

Third thought? Well, mostly a lot like the second one, and the ones after it. But the next thought he has that doesn't involve doing lewd acts with Detective Smoking Hot Beckett? He wants, so very badly, to be the guy in her life. Period.

* * *

><p>"Beckett. . ."<p>

"Beckett. . ."

"Beckett. . . "

Her head snaps around, her eyes flashing. "What, Castle?"

Uh-oh. "Never mind."

"Unh-uh. No you don't," she retorts, leaning across the side of her desk to get very, very close to him. He smells cherries. He hunkers down in his seat to ride it out. "You've been pestering me for the last hour, Castle. Now you have my attention. Talk."

Not a good time for this. He will wait. (He hasn't been able to wait. He's too excited.) "It'll keep," he says, giving her a weak smile.

"Castle, I swear to God-"

"In your current frame of mind, I don't think He'd be very happy with that."

She half-rises, looking seriously like she might actually do him bodily harm, but then snatches her coffee mug and stalks past him.

Esposito gives him the evil eye from across the way. "Good job, Castle. You get to abandon ship, but we gotta stay here with *that* after you riled her up. Didn't you read the sign?"

Castle looks at him blankly. "What sign?"

"Do not tease the animals."

Rick narrows his eyes and gets up, heading for the break room. "*I* am not the tease. She is the tease."

"Sure, sure. Just go fix that before you leave, punk."

Castle grumbles to himself but finds Beckett pouring the crap coffee into her mug. "Are we back to you avoiding the espresso machine?"

"Castle. Now is not a good time."

"It's kinda the only time I got."

"What are you talking about?" She clanks the coffee pot back onto the warmer without looking, her eyes shooting straight to his, her face washed out.

Castle rewinds the scene, then realizes what he's said, or at least how it sounds. "No, no, no. I didn't mean I'm gonna die, I mean, this has been the only time I'm not crazy busy or you're not crazy busy. Summer's coming; I'm trying to finish the next book, you're. . .you."

Her face has managed to regain some color during his explanation, but he notices that she has wrapped both hands around her mug. As if to keep them from shaking. Adrenaline. "I'm me," she says slowly. "Well, what is it you just have to tell me?"

"It's more like a question."

"No. I'm not going with you to the Hamptons," she says and moves to brush past him.

"If that was a joke, it's not funny." Castle reaches out to grab her as she passes. Last summer's issues were put behind them, he thought.

She shoots him a death stare that should shrink his balls, but maybe he's getting used to those looks because he doesn't let go. "Castle."

"Kate." He knows his quiet seriousness has gotten to her; the veil of pissed irritation drops. That thing in her eyes that he's seen, so rarely at first but more and more lately, that thing flares to life with such fierce intensity that he takes a step back.

And ruins it. The wall is back. He silently curses himself for proving her right, proving that he *can't* handle her. He knows what's wrong, knows that she expects to be dropped the moment he gets bored. He still hasn't proved himself. Still.

He steps closer, trying to erase the distance, and curls his hands around her forearms, his fingers caressing the back of her elbows. "Not the Hamptons, Kate."

"Then what?" she asks. He can hear her struggling to maintain that sneering _I could care less_, but it fails. He hears instead the _Don't hurt me again_ behind it.

"Dinner."

"What?" She startles backwards, breaking his grip on her.

"Dinner. Someplace nice. You and me."

"No." She frowns at him and tries to move past.

Castle catches her again, drags her back around in front of him again. "Kate."

"Castle," she says back, eyebrow raised.

"Dinner. You and me."

"I heard you the first time."

He presses his advantage and pushes her to a seat; she stands back up immediately, and Castle taps her shoulders to push her back down.

"You might have heard, but you aren't listening."

"Castle, this isn't a good time."

He swallows hard but doesn't relent. She's trying to warn him off, but he won't be intimidated. He isn't backing down now. "If I don't take my chance, Kate, something else will come between us. Someone else will come along. This is the right time. This is the only time."

"No." But she's hunched over in the seat, her hands clasped together on her knees.

"Dinner," he insists, sitting down across from her and clasping her hands between his, stroking the outside of her fingers slowly. "Dinner with me."

"No."

"Just once."

"And you'll never bring it up again?"

"No," he says honestly. "I'll ask again and again until you say yes to a second date. Even if the first one bombs. Even if the first date gets interrupted by a body dropping or a family emergency or another terrorist attack. I'll ask again. And again."

"Are you serious?" she moans, and withdraws her hands from his to bury her head.

"I'm serious."

She looks up; he can see her wavering. "No, Castle."

"Yes." Castle snags her hands again, drawing them down from her face to cradle them between his own. Castle presses a kiss to her knuckles that pulls a startled gasp from her.

"Castle," she protests, meeting his eyes finally.

He raises one hand to caress her cheek, push that hair back from her face. When they first met, her hair was short, spiky on the ends, rather cop. Lately, she's let it grow out, let it fall past her shoulders, let it curl. It makes her softer. Every time he looks at her now, it's like a hook in his gut. He wants to twist her hair in his fist and bring her against him, rough and gentle at the same time.

She captures his wandering hand, leans back. "Not here, Castle."

"That means somewhere else?"

She shoots him a look and scoots back, getting to her feet again. "Just. Not here."

He takes that as a yes.

* * *

><p>He has reservations for Friday night and ambushes her at work dressed in his best suit. She stares at him in disbelief. When he produces a bouquet of flowers, she takes him by the ear into the conference room.<p>

"Ow, ow, ow!" he yelped.

"What the hell, Castle? I told you- -not here!"

"If not here, where else would you be?"

She's furious, but he knows what lies behind it. Knows he saw a moment of longing in her eyes the other day. And that's what he banks on now. He doesn't say a word, just stands there in his suit, and presents her the flowers again.

She snatches them out of his hand and smacks his arm. "Castle."

"Yes."

"No. I'm not even dressed for this."

"I have a car. I can either take you home first, or you can wear what I picked out."

She steps back. "You bought me another dress?"

Castle shifts, but tries to keep still. Show no weakness. "Yes."

"Castle. No."

"Please?" He knows it sounds a little desperate, but it's apparently just the right thing to say. He sees her relent, sees her shoulders slump as she gives in.

"Fine. Let me finish up my paperwork-"

"Ryan's got it." Castle gestures over her shoulder.

She turns to see Ryan waving at them through the window. "Castle," she growls.

"He doesn't know it's a date!" Castle steps around her to block her view. "He thinks I'm just taking you to get dinner. Long day. Long week."

She frowns and crosses her arms. "And you're dressed in a suit, with flowers? Right."

"I told them I had a benefit later."

She doesn't look convinced, but she is already relenting. He has her. "Come on. Time to go, Kate."

She makes him wait a long, long time before she heads for the door. He follows at a safe distance until she reaches the elevator; he tries to keep his smile from showing. When the doors open, she gets in and asks, "Where are we going?"

He grins, doesn't try to hide it. "To dinner."

She just sighs.

* * *

><p>"You bought me a dress."<p>

"I did it before. You didn't seem to mind."

She sighs. "But that was for a case."

"So?"

"That was for the job, Castle."

He leans toward her in the car, across the great divide, clasps her hand with his. "This is most definitely not for the job. But it's a classy dress. A little slutty, but not too-"

"Castle!" She jerks her hand away to give him the death stare.

"They'd have to revoke my man card if I bought you a dress that covered things." He gives her a pitiful look, like it's completely out of his hands.

Why does he have to look so damn attractive? It makes her furious. She's going because there isn't really a good reason not to go, but she wants there to be one. A reason. Doesn't she? An excuse. Anything to reroute this track they're taking. It's going to hit them like a ton of bricks when the train comes through.

"I'm not wearing that dress."

"I'll just bring it up with me. How about that?"

"You think you're coming up with me?" she snaps, withdrawing against the door.

He nods happily.

"Think again, Castle."

* * *

><p>Somehow, he's at her heels at her front door as she unlocks it, the box in both hands, on his tiptoes with excitement. Bouncing. She shoves open the door, yanks her key out of the lock, and spins on her heel to glare at Castle as he comes in behind her. That ever-eager face of his, his eyes peering around to take in every detail, sucking her soul out of her just by looking at the place. She remembers hearing somewhere that certain Native American tribes didn't like to have their picture made back in the day because they felt it robbed them of their souls. It feels like that now, as Castle clicks away in his head, storing all this for later.<p>

She unclips her badge and unbelts her holster. She handles the gun expertly, carefully, as always, but makes a point of letting Castle see it. The display doesn't dampen his enthusiasm, and she huffs again and heads for her bedroom and the box.

Everything goes back in the box: the gun, the badge, the watch, the ring on its chain. The pieces of her armor put away one by one. The elements of justice. Without those four things, she's left standing alone in her bedroom, fighting the urge to open the hanging bag and try on whatever is inside, like a little girl playing dress up with her mother's clothes. Her hands are shaking.

She closes the lid, closes her eyes for a moment of breathing room, and hears Castle coming down the hall.

Towards her room.

"Are you decent?"

"Yes," she grumbles.

"Darn."

She meets his mirth with a glare, but he places the hanging bag on her bed and stands there waiting. Waiting for her to open it and see.

"I have my own clothes, Castle."

"Just look at it," he says softly, and it isn't his normal excited voice. It's something different, a pause in their usual back and forth, just enough real expectation and unmitigated hope that she can't refuse him. He's nervous. She heard it in that voice.

She makes a fist and digs it into her thigh, praying she can stick to her guns, but determination deserts her. She reaches the bed in two quick strides and has the bag unzipped with a flip of her wrist.

Just a little black dress. She pulls it out; it tumbles down to knee length, a slit up the skirt that is both modest and appealing, with a deep v-neck that probably will be flattering. Would be, if she were to wear it. Not at all slutty. Quite classy. And just holding it, holding it, makes her feel beautiful.

Damn. She chews on the inside of her cheek, trying to formulate a response that doesn't sound as schoolgirl as she feels.

"I'll let you change," he says softly, that voice again, and touches her elbow as he turns to leave. But she's already seen the pleasure in his eyes.

* * *

><p>She takes her time because she can, and because, if she's being honest, it matters how she looks. She thinks about straightening her hair, to be different for once, but that will take an hour or more, and she's not sure he'll wait that long. Instead, she pins it up halfway, letting it wave around her ears, tumble down to her shoulders. She uses her mother's hair clips, costume jewelry really, but the mother of pearl shines in the light and highlights the pink in her cheeks.<p>

She uses lip gloss and reapplies her eyeliner, a little heavier, bolder, then uses eye shadow to suggest that her eyes are a more brilliant green than they really are. She dusts powder across her forehead, along her nose, studies the shadows under her eyes critically. If she uses concealer, it'll be cracked and settled into the lines around her eyes by ten o'clock. Instead, she dusts white eye shadow beneath the corners of her eyes, and the shadows lighten.

Kate brushes her hair back over her shoulder and turns around to the hanging garment bag. The black dress is tucked inside, so she pulls it back out and holds it up against her body. It will be a perfect fit of course. Probably a little tighter than she cares to wear, if she goes by his past acquisition for her. That red dress fit her like a glove, although, honestly, it'd probably be a little looser now than it was then. She's lost some weight this past summer, with everything and Castle leaving and-

Well, stress twists her stomach in knots, and she's been stressed.

She unzips the side and steps into the dress. Form-fitting, the pencil skirt clings to her thighs. She zips it up under her arm and smooths the material down over her torso, then half-turns to check it out in the mirror.

She looks good. She knows it. Castle's going to-

Best stop right there.

Kate checks her make up again, then twists full circle to make sure she hasn't left any deodorant spots or smudges of powder on the dress.

It's elegant and sexy, and she feels powerful in a dress like this. She steps into atrociously high heels with a peekaboo toe, grabs her clutch (which still has her snub-nosed .38 special in it, cleaned only yesterday), then dumps stuff out of her jacket pockets looking for her id and some money. She goes back to the box holding her service weapon and badge, debates over whether or not she should bring it, but decides that leaving it at home is just asking for something to happen. So, in the bag goes the badge, the .38 special, her phone, id, some cash, and her lip gloss.

Ready now, Kate takes a deep breath, constricted a little by the strictures of the dress, and faces herself in the mirror.

_You can do this, Kate._

* * *

><p>Castle is rifling through her books, skimming the titles, when he hears the door to her bedroom open behind him. He spins around, eagerly anticipating the dress, the look, and is stunned into immobility by Kate's appearance.<p>

He breathes out, nearly choking, and watches her walk towards him slowly, like a minx, sleek and dark and divine. Castle's fingers twitch with wanting, but he can't move.

She stops right before him, smooths a hand down her skirt, and he realizes that she's nervous, that the whole walk down the hallway to meet him was an act.

"God, you're beautiful," he murmurs, stepping in close because he can't help himself, places two hands on her hips and a kiss to her cheek.

She flushes pink; he's delighted by that blush and how she doesn't draw back. He keeps his hands on her hips, smiling so wide it hurts.

And then she pushes against his chest and breaks his hold. "Let's go, Castle."

He happily follows her out of her apartment, waits while she locks up, staring at her up and down. Her legs are long, the flash of skin at the slit of her skirt tantalizing, and the smooth expanse of her back-

"Stop staring, Castle."

"Staring is caring," he retorts, and reaches for her hand once she has her door locked. Her step falters, and she tugs back, but he won't let go. Her hand is warm, a little sweaty, and now he's really certain: she is totally nervous about this. He laces his fingers through hers, squeezes, and pulls her hand close to his thigh so that she has to walk a little closer to him.

She stumbles in her heels (he's never seen her stumble, not once), falling into his side. Castle catches her, waits until she gets her balance back, but doesn't let her get much further away from him.

"Are you going to let go?" she says, turning to him and frowning. "You're throwing off my balance, Castle."

He grins and jiggles her hand. "No way. Get used to it. You can adapt."

She rolls her eyes at him, but doesn't try to jerk her hand away. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise. But I'll give you a hint. There's dancing."

He has a good clip going down the hallway when she stops suddenly, bringing him up short.

"I'm not dancing with you. I don't dance, Castle."

"That's a lie. You dance."

She says nothing, just stares him down. He's not having it tonight.

"You dance," he insists and tugs on her hand again. "And you'll dance with me. After dinner."

"No."

Castle ignores that and draws closer to take her elbow, propels her towards her elevator. "Come on, Kate. We have reservations."

* * *

><p>She's freaked. Definitely freaked.<p>

They're in the West Village now, the car sliding through traffic easily, driving them ever closer to whatever Castle has planned for tonight. She's this close to panicking, but she can't let it show. That will only inflate Castle's ego. Or maybe the opposite. She's not sure, exactly, how far she can push Castle before he gives up on her.

She's always been too much.

She sucks in her breath and tries to keep her abs tight. The dress is a little unforgiving. She shifts in the seat, her hand still trapped by Castle's, and watches the city skyline. West Village. Where in the West Village? She needs to breathe.

"Here we are," Castle says as the car pulls to a stop.

Oh my word. Oh my. . .

The white archway, the ancient brickwork, the alley, the two planters in front of the door.

"One If By Land?" she asks, but she knows the answer. One If By Land, Two If By Sea is one of the most expensive, romantic restaurants in the city.

"TIBS," he agrees.

"Castle."

"That is my name."

"This is too much. This place is seriously expensive." And seriously romantic. And she isn't ready for that right now.

"You do know I'm seriously loaded, right?" He gives her a look and steps out of the car, then reaches back to hand her out.

There's no sign out front; it's that elite. When they walk through the front doors, the hostess greets them with a clipped smile and takes Kate's wrap as Castle gives his name. He puts his hand at her back, and that's okay, she thinks it's okay, and follows the hostess towards the back.

The place is seriously romantic. Dim light, a pianist working the keys of a beautiful baby grand. Fresh flowers decorate every table, the brick walls rise above their heads to meet sparkling chandeliers. Two large fireplaces at one end crackle with flames, warming the drafty room. Lovely wood beams frame the arched doorways leading to the kitchens and private rooms; the windows are french doors that lead out into a garden.

Their table, draped in a white cloth, is near that garden, and five tables around them in a circle are graced with reserved signs, which gives them a modicum of privacy in the restaurant. Castle waits behind her chair to push it in once she's seated, and then he moves around, holding his tie against his chest, and sits down himself.

"It's a chef's tasting tonight, so the menu is mostly set. But if there's anything you don't like or want, just let them know and they'll switch it out." Castle looks to the hostess who nods her affirmation.

"Can I take your drink order?" the girl says, her hands behind her back. "Your waiter will be over in a minute."

"Can you bring us a bottle of-?"

"No. Just a glass of house white for me," Kate interrupts.

Castle looks over at her, raising an eyebrow, his lips quirking. "Make mine a house white wine as well."

When the hostess leaves, he leans forward. "I hope their house stuff is worth it. If not, I'm so changing our order."

She raises an eyebrow back, leans forward with some approximation of confidence, and said, "Castle. I make my own decisions."

He leans back, blowing out his breath with a grin. "Point taken, Detective."

* * *

><p>He likes to watch her eat, delicate and cautious, the fork not hitting her teeth (which he totally loves, in a weird, OCD kinda way). She savors every little thing; he can tell even though she's trying so hard to keep it from showing on her face. And she knows how to eat too; she takes a few bites of each course, enough to taste, but not trying to fill her appetite. The carrot soup is first, which tastes like sweet potato soup and is oddly a lot better than he expected, but Kate doesn't take more than a few mouthfuls. Now that they're on the third course, the lentil soup, he realizes the wisdom in her approach.<p>

"Have you been here before?" he asks, blowing on his soup before putting it to his lips. He has a sudden image of Josh and Kate sitting at this same table, doing the same things, and it makes him irritated.

Castle watches her face as she debates lying to him, then sees her shoulders slump as she decides on the truth. "No. How many times have you been?"

He puts his spoon back to his bowl, giving up on the soup. "I've never been."

Her spoon clatters out of her fingers. He looks up at the noise and sees absolute shock written across her face.

"You've never been here before?"

"No. It's pretty good though. I mean, the food is just. . .excellent. You like it?"

"Wait, Castle. . ." She shakes her head at him. "You're telling me you've never brought anyone here before?"

Ah, so that's what this is about. "You're the first."

She sits back from the table just as their waiter unobtrusively withdraws their bowls and replaces it with their duck bread appetizer. The bread is crisp, the duck fat melted perfectly on top with swirls of cheese and pepper. Castle reaches out and takes a piece, puts it on his plate, and cuts into it. Kate's still staring at him.

"I hear the duck bread is the best," he says, trying to restart their conversation.

"Oh no you don't, Castle," she says, her eyes narrowing at him. "You can't just drop a bomb like that and brush it off like it's nothing."

"What bomb?" He knows teasing her isn't the best idea, not when she's like this, but it's so fun to see the flash of irritation in her eyes.

She jabs the fork at him. "You've never been here before!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Castle!"

"What?"

"This is one of the most expensive and romantic places in New York, and you're telling me you never took anyone here? None of them?"

He raises an eyebrow at her indignation. "None of them?" He smirks at her. "Just how many to you think I've had?"

Flustered, she drops her gaze, puts her fork down on the empty plate. She's beautiful, flushed and a little angry at him, for what he isn't exactly sure, and her blush travels down the deep v of her neckline.

"Kate."

"Forget it."

"No way, I'm interested now."

"Never mind, Castle." And she's truly ticked, stabbing her fork at the bread and bringing some to her plate.

"If you're asking about real relationships, there haven't been as many as you think. If you're asking about how many women I've had sex with-" Her entire face flushes deep crimson, to his utter delight. "-a gentleman never kisses and tells."

She won't look at him now. It's amusing, but it isn't exactly how he wants this date to go.

"Kate, I don't know what you think of me sometimes, but surely you didn't expect me to take you to places I've taken other women? You're extraordinary, and you deserve-"

"Castle," she says softly, shaking her head at him, and he knows her well enough to stop, to let it go for now. But if there's anything he wants to do tonight, it's prove to her that he isn't the man she seems to mistake him for, that he can be and he will be good enough for her.

"Eat some duck bread, Kate. It's sinful."


	2. Chapter 2

Kate eats slowly, trying not to notice how long and often Castle is staring at her. She takes her time, small bites, and tries to sit up straight in her seat; the dress leaves little room for forgiveness. Honestly, if she knew she was was going to be eating such amazing food, she'd have insisted on wearing something from her own closet. Something with a little give. Why has she let him talk her into this?

"You're going to have to take me back here when I'm wearing a tent," she mutters, giving him a glare.

Castle sputters on his sip of wine and raises an eyebrow at her.

She rewinds her last comment and blushes. Okay, fine, so she just basically admitted she planned on being with Castle sometime in the future. "Seriously, Castle. A girl can't eat when she's wrapped in cling wrap."

The carefully blank look that wipes over his face lets her know she's stepped past his boundaries, put pictures in his head he's got little control over. She smiles. Now who's blushing?

"I'll make a reservation tonight," he says, carefully watching her face.

Fine. She's not a coward. She meant it. "How long of a wait?"

His eyes shift to hers. "Six months."

"Six months?" She does some calculations. "You made us reservations six months ago?" What case was that? The magic shop? Oh.

He must see the fruit of her mental detective work on her face because he nods slightly. "The day after Gina and I broke up."

"Such confidence."

Castle shakes his head, pushing the food around on his plate. "Just hope." He raises his eyes to give her a self-deprecating grin. "And I figured if I couldn't wear you down after six months, maybe I didn't deserve you."

"What makes you think you deserve me now?"

He winces. "Touche, Detective." Immediately she wants to take it back, smooth the line that starts suddenly in his forehead, connects to nothing else. That line of hurt. The table is too wide between them; she has no way to bridge the distance. If she reaches out her hand, he can decide not to take it.

But she has other ways. Better ways.

She flicks her heel off, uncrosses her legs, and straightens one long leg. Kate slides her foot forward before she can change her mind, feels the cool fibers of the carpet, then the hard leather of his shoe, then the silk of his sock over the bone of his ankle. Castle looks shocked. She smiles again and lets her foot hook around the back of his leg, his achilles tendon tense across the top of her toes.

He blinks, hands flat on the table but twitching. She leaves her foot where it is; the table isn't that big after all, and her knee could practically brush his if she scooted forward. Kate goes back to her food, carefully keeping her head down, but watching him from the corner of her eye.

He takes a too-large swallow of wine and his face pinkens, but he doesn't go back to his food.

The last course, beef wellington, follows their lobster. She can't even touch it, though it looks good. She's never been a big beef person, and Castle is looking like he's got other things on his mind. She wonders if it would be wrong to abandon dinner now and head back to-

Is she seriously thinking about taking him home? No. Absolutely not.

"Don't like it?" he asks softly.

"Honestly, I don't know that I could eat anything else."

"What about dessert?"

She bites her lip and surveys the restaurant. "What is it?"

He grins. "Chocolate pistachio brownie with vanilla rum Bavarian cream."

"Can we skip straight to dessert?"

"Oh yeah," he replies, signaling their waiter. "Got room for it?"

"Just don't judge me if I'm busting out of this dress."

"That would be the last thing on my mind."

* * *

><p>"Feel like walking off that dessert?" he asks, his fingers just brushing her elbow as they leave the restaurant. The night air is humid and sits comfortably close; she leaves her wrap over one arm and allows him to steer her down the sidewalk.<p>

"Sure. Where are we going?"

"Nowhere?" He gives her a gentle smile, and she wonders how this evening went from being a challenge, a point of honor between them, to being a tenderness, a point of connection they can't or won't give up.

"Nowhere. All right."

She's feeling generous, touched actually. When Castle was settling the bill, Kate went back to the front doors to wait on him, curious about the peculiar pattern of patrons seated in the restaurant. The tables closest to them, five or so, were empty and reserved, but the place was packed with people otherwise. She found it strange that no one had come through their entire meal, so she asked the hostess.

Apparently all of those tables are reserved under the name Richard Castle. She can't imagine how he arranged that, but it's sweet. Sort of. He ensured their privacy throughout dinner.

Now on the sidewalk outside, Castle lets his hand skim down her arm to lace through her fingers. She swings his arm close to her side so that the back of his hand brushes her thigh, smiles at him. The eagerness has left his face, the need to please, and a kind of strange contentment veils his face. Or joy. It could be joy. She's not sure, but maybe it's what she feels too.

She steps beside him as they walk down the street, their hands heavy, arms touching, shoulders and hips brushing, but silent. She wants to not speak, just carry this around inside her for awhile, and he seems to understand. If she has to say anything right now, it will be self-conscious and hyper-aware, and she wants only to stretch out cautiously inside this place he's built for them. Making reservations six months ago. Reserving five tables so that they're alone. Buying her a dress. Creepy, a tad bit manipulative, so how come she likes it so much?

His thumb makes careful patterns on the back of her hand. The city isn't dark, but a darkness has shrouded them. A familiar darkness, a comforting darkness, 'the darkness of enfolding arms,' as the novel says. He's at her left side, warm and solid, a wall of Castle. She knows where this is headed, and even though she can't see the end, she's not sure that's such a bad thing anymore. She remembers her father, stoic and flinty at her mother's funeral. She remembers him saying, _"I never thought I'd be here when it was over."_ As if he couldn't believe there was a place on the other side of their marriage.

She wonders if her father had this same feeling with her mom. Of things being both so carefully crafted, so delicate, but also so strong, so untouchable, that there's no way to fathom an end. Is this what it feels like? Panicked and certain at the same time, not wanting a single thing to change but desperate for it to be different somehow.

"Kate," he says hesitantly, turning his head to look at her.

She raises an eyebrow, inviting him to continue even though she wants the silence, the certainty, to last. She's afraid, sometimes, that the more he talks, the less she can imagine doing this. But his face is so earnest again, so eager to please. She likes it better when he's confident, but she can't say no to his desperation.

"Kate, I want to take you places," he says. She can feel his hand in hers, damp with nervousness. "I want to share things with you. When I get home, I want to call you and tell you everything that's happened in the thirty minutes I haven't seen you. I want. . .I want. . ."

She lets him struggle with the words, her head down, trying to quell the furious pace of her heart.

"I want to take you to the Greek islands and climb those steps up to the wide blue door with the potted red flowers so you can look out over the Mediterranean. I want to stand in the Coliseum with you after dark when you're not supposed to and break the curse. I want. . .I want to come back to this restaurant with you in six months, a year. I want to get you a puppy that will fall asleep in your lap, and-"

She clutches his arm with both hands, willing him to stop. "Castle."

"I know. I know it's too much. I'm sorry. But I don't think I can stop."

She can't say anything. There's nothing to say. She just. . .she's not ready for a decision, but saying no to any of it would be the same as saying no to him. And she can't say no to him.

"I don't do toilet-training," she says, holding her breath, lifting her head to see how he takes this.

"A full-grown dog then." He won't take maybe for answer, at least, not for long; he did warn her. "Something that will lick your face when you get home."

It's out of her mouth before she can stop it. "I've got you, don't I?"

* * *

><p><em>Did she really say that?<em>

Rick gives her a quick glance and sees she's both flustered and aroused at the same time.

"You've definitely got me," he agrees, but he doesn't add anything else to it; his brain too late checking his mouth.

She doesn't say anything this time, and he tries to be content with the night, with her warm and slight at his side, but it's like something's gotten into him, something's infected him: a sense of wasting time, losing time. He doesn't want this to end, and yet it's close to eight o'clock and his plans didn't go much past dinner because he honestly always expected her to say no. They were supposed to dance, but when he saw that no one stood up to enjoy the light piano, he didn't force her. They've already had dessert; he's got no logical excuse to keep her with him.

"So what would Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook do now?" Kate says unexpectedly, her thumb brushing across his.

"Probably get in a cab, go back to her place," he says, talking before he can think.

Her gait stutters a second, but she says nothing to that, and Rick mentally berates himself for the lack of filter.

"But that's them," he adds.

She squeezes his hand. "You did say Nikki was kinda slutty."

"I did," he grins.

"She has casual sex with her sparring partner."

"Yeah." He wonders if this is the part of their relationship where she gets to criticize his books. He's good with that; this has been the turning point for a lot of his more serious relationships. He wonders if being able to complain about a book character or a plot somehow indicates how much that other person feels comfortable and safe with him. Familiar.

"She has casual sex with Rook."

"No," he says, tugging on her arm to stop her, only a few blocks down from the restaurant. "It's not casual."

"In the first book, it-"

"Nothing about them is casual, Kate."

"But the night they have sex, she drinks-"

"Nothing about them is casual." He stares her down, willing her to get it, to see.

Kate looks up at him, some kind of debate going on in her eyes, and then she leans in and presses a kiss to his jaw, brushes his ear with her lips. "Get us a cab, Castle."

* * *

><p>She's seriously regretting getting in this cab with him. <em>Bad idea, Kate<em>. She can't keep her hands to herself, and goodness knows, asking Castle to be the mature one is the stupidest idea in the history of the world, but even as she thinks, _bad idea_, she's still kissing him. She can't understand why suddenly, she's all over him, but the best she can figure is that she has harbored some hang-up about Rick that has to do with Jameson Rook.

It's fiction, she reminds herself. But still. _Nothing about them is casual_.

His hand feathers along her side, skimming until he reaches her shoulder, wraps his fingers around her to pull her in tighter. She tries to keep her hands at his waist, hovering at his belt, tries to ignore the fluttering in her belly and the sweet heat rising under her skin.

Castle nibbles at the side of her jaw, uses his fingertips to caress the upsweep of her neck, his thumb against her throat, angling her exactly where he wants her. She's never been passive about this, but suddenly, she wants only to feel, to let him do as he wishes, to melt into the floor as he sets her ablaze.

She's got both hands pressed against his back now, inexorable force, ever closer. He bites down on her earlobe, sucks the mark gently, moves to her cheekbone, then the corner of her mouth, then she is letting him push her back a little in the cab, feeling his weight settle against her side, the sharp jut of his elbow at her ribs as he caresses her neck. She barely breathes, lets only shallow gasps in and out, brings a hand up to press her palm to the side of his face, bewildered and aroused.

The intense vibrations of her phone make them both jump, the device going off between them, and she reaches for it, tugs it out of the clutch, holding it against her chest as her heart pounds. Castle chuckles, throaty and gruff, and she leans her forehead against his shoulder to catch her breath before she answers it.

With trembling fingers, with Castle still hovering over her in the backseat of a cab, his hands at her neck, fingers brushing her cheeks as if that's supposed to be soothing, she unlocks her phone and sees Esposito is calling. "Beckett."

"We got a body."

"*We* don't," she snaps. Castle's fingers at the nape of her neck are mesmerizing, delicious.

"Beckett, I think you're gonna want this one."

"We're not on call, Esposito. Why are you th-there?" She has to suck in a deep breath to keep from getting light-headed, Castle's silent assault breaking her down.

"Lanie called me."

"*Lanie's* not on call tonight either." She gasps at the end of that one, pushes at Castle's shoulder to leave her alone, but his grip is tight, insistent.

"She got a call. Beckett, I'm serious, you're gonna want this one."

"What is it?"

"Familiar ligature marks. Lanie's found familiar rope fibers. Nothing concrete yet."

Kate's body goes cold. She shoves hard on Castle and he jerks back, the look on his face a little wounded, but she closes her eyes to concentrate.

"Who else is there?"

"We got Detective Stanton out here, and me and Ryan. Lanie's got the body. She's pretty certain."

"Damn. Okay. Give me the address." She grabs Castle's hand, fishes a pen out of the inside pocket of Castle's suit jacket where she's seen him keep them. Still does. On his palm, she jots down the address as Esposito relays it to her, caps the pen, and tells Espo she'll be there in thirty minutes.

"Good. And, Beckett? Bring Castle with you."

She sighs. So of course, everyone in the precinct knows. She ends the call, Castle's hand still splayed across her lap, warm and heavy, stained with the address of a crime scene.

She raps on the clear glass dividing them from the taxi driver, and he slides it back.

"Change of plans."

* * *

><p>Castle keeps his hand in her lap during the ride to the crime scene. Now that he has gotten this far, he's not going back. The ink won't run, even if his hand gets damp; the ink won't fade anytime soon.<p>

She doesn't lean away, but she is collecting herself again, building back the professional detective exterior.

"Do you have your gun and badge on you?" he asks.

She doesn't answer the question; instead she turns to look at him with troubled eyes. "Castle."

"Oh no. No way. I am not going home. I am coming with you."

She brushes him off with a wave of her hand. "Not that."

"Then what?"

"The vic. Strangled."

"So?" He's completely bewildered by the haunted look in her eyes, the tenderness she seems to be displaying towards him.

She slides her hand into his, the one on her lap, and cradles it against her belly, blotting the address from view. It's amazing how desire and dread wind through him.

"Esposito said it's familiar. He said to bring you. It-"

"Kate." He says her name softly; he's never seen this kind of quiet compassion directed at him before. At least, not since the poolside- "Oh."

She swallows. "The Triple Killer."

He's pretty sure his face is bleached of color. He drops his head, closes his eyes for a second. Has to breathe, has to face it. "Someone I know?"

He feels her body jerk at his side, and she squeezes his hand, hard, as she says, "No. No, Castle. It's not. At least, I don't think so. I didn't think of that." She sucks in a shaky breath beside him. "Not that the boys knew, or else they'd have told me."

"Why'd he come back? Surely he knows that we're going to be on top of this."

"I don't know. It's just Lanie's prelim anyway. Rope fibers might come back negative."

He leans over, presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. He feels like throwing up, and only ten minutes ago, he was feeling practically giddy.

"Maybe you should go home," she says and leans forward like she's going to knock on the glass again.

Castle catches her fist and draws it to his chest. "No. I'm not going home. You're not doing this without me."

She flexes her fingers under his grip, but he doesn't let go. He's got both of her hands now. "I wouldn't dream of it, Castle. But you don't have to see the crime scene in person."

"Yes I do. I do." Because he has to face the consequences of his own arrogance, sometime or another.

Pride goes before a fall.

* * *

><p>She's worried about him. At the back of her mind, she's worried about herself too. Would she be this worried if they hadn't gotten this far? If she had ignored him today and not given in to a dinner date, would she be so worried now?<p>

Well, her feelings, however murky and complicated they are, haven't really changed in just the last few hours. Less murky maybe. No less complicated. She's not a worrier; her brain doesn't think like that. Castle's a big boy; he can take care of himself. Still, she feels the need to bolster him, keep him going as long as possible.

She's trying not to think about the Triple Killer and his manipulative ways, trying not to wonder about what game he's playing and what terrible things he's got in store for them. It might not be him. It still might only be coincidence.

She and Castle have survived a lot. Survived him poking the deepest of her wounds, survived terrorist bombs and cold storage freezers. Triple Killer? They've got this.

The cab turns from 7th onto West 42nd, then jogs over to Amsterdam. Castle gets restless. "Is this in my neighborhood?" he hisses.

She shakes her head. "No. But close."

"Damn."

She sighs. The blocks crawl by; traffic on Amsterdam is always stop and go, no matter what time of day. If she were driving, they'd be using a side street. Still, it gives them a little extra time.

"Castle?"

"Yeah."

She waits until he turns his head to look at her, his eyes dull, darkened by something she names resignation. She's still holding his left hand in her right one, cradled by her lap, and she squeezes it again. He looks distracted, guilty.

Kate leans in, brings her free hand up to his face, and presses her mouth against his, long and hard, her heart pounding. She gives him a thoroughly distracting kiss, breaks free only to rest her forehead against his, stroking his cheek with her thumb. "We're going to be okay, Castle."

He lets a shaky sigh and wraps his arm around her, tugging her close, her head falling to his shoulder. "Thank you."

"Always," she murmurs, her lips against his neck.

* * *

><p>Only minutes later, the cab drops them off at their murder scene. Kate steps out in her little black dress, badge already out of her clutch, and flashes it at the police officer standing in front of the crime scene tape. Castle is right behind her; Javier has come down to meet them at the tape line. He raises an eyebrow and gives her the once over.<p>

"Looking mighty fine, Detective Beckett."

She ignores him. "Who's our vic?"

He hands her gloves, she passes them back to Castle, takes another pair from Esposito as they stand just inside the alley. It's not Washington Heights, but there's an odd familiarity about the alley. An upscale bar on her right, a former brownstone turned real estate office on the left. The alley holds two dumpsters, a host of crime scene technicians. She spots Detective Stanton, who caught the call, and Lanie in her blue crime scene gear.

She also smells death. Blood and bowels.

Esposito leads them to the second dumpster; it must service the real estate office. "Victim is Roma Haskins. 31, single. Real estate agent next door." The woman looks inordinately young, even in death. Ligature marks on her neck, nails pale purple, hair the color of dirty wheat. Still in her office suit, a rich navy.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Castle glance to the building to the left and promptly go pale. "Castle. You know her?" she bites out.

Castle glances down then, for the first time, and she watches his face carefully. Nothing. Not a flicker. But he's still stunned. "No. I don't. Don't know her."

"What is it then?" she says, not willing to coddle him, not after so many murder scenes where he's bouncing around like an eager bloodhound.

"I don't know her specifically. But I hired this real estate agency before. When I was looking for-" He cuts off, blushes, and won't look at her.

She raises an eyebrow, shares a look with Esposito. Sometimes Castle is so bad at covering his tracks. "Looking for what, Castle?"

He gives an uncomfortable shrug of his shoulders and raises his head. "Looking for an apartment for you. Earlier. I. . .I never found anything worthwhile, and then you found it on your own, so I didn't need the agent any longer."

Kate's mouth goes dry. "You were looking for an apartment for me."

Esposito shifts into a wide-legged stance, crosses his arms of his chest, glares at Castle. "Bro. Are you telling us that you were trying to buy her an apartment?"

"No! No, not at all. I knew she'd never, I mean, you wouldn't. But I thought if you had someone looking full-time, they might find some hidden gem, some great apartment that you could actually afford. But you found one all by yourself. These guys kept showing me really upscale stuff; no matter how many times I told my price range, they figured I needed more. So I dropped them."

"Okay, all right. I'll deal with you later." She gives him a final glare and turns to Lanie, who has been listening in on their conversation from her spot beside the body. "Lanie, how close is this?"

"My gut tells me dead-on, Detective. But I won't know for sure until I get her to the morgue; get the fibers' test from the lab. Could be weeks before I know."

"Lab backed up?"

"Girl, it is always backed up. And weeks is with me pulling strings."

Kate growls. "What about the vic? Killed here or dumped?"

"Dumped. No signs of the struggle she must've put up. I got fibers under her nails; she must've clawed at the rope. Her nails are bloodied as well."

"That's good enough for now." Kate doesn't want any more conjecture before she knows hard facts. She needs evidence. She needs to do this right.

Lanie glances to Javier, then back to Castle and Kate. "You two look nice."

"Save it," Kate warns. "All right. We're going to proceed like this is our guy. Esposito, tell the crime scene techs to take photographs of the gawkers out there as well. But not obviously. The windows next door. Anything that offers a hiding place to watch. Castle-"

She turns to him and he's still a little pale, but he's bouncing back. "Get out your phone. No, hold it down. At your side. Take photos of the crowd too, every time you turn, snap a shot. I want to see if anyone is watching you. Looking at you specifically. Espo, where's Ryan?"

"Back there. Talking to Stanton."

Kate glances over Esposito's shoulder to the deep shadows. "Let's get some lights in here for the tech guys, all right? Has Stanton worked up a perimeter, chain of evidence, logbook, anything?"

"Naw, we was waiting on you."

She nods once. "All right. Bring Ryan and Stanton over here, get a couple of the unies. We need to do this right. We'll have to canvas both buildings, and across the street. Talk to the crowd, get as many names as you can. Someone, somewhere saw something."


	3. Chapter 3

The detectives work a grid, slowly, combing it for evidence and marking each scrap with a number, then putting it on the corresponding map. Beckett asks him to sit this out, so he's waiting in the back of the tech van, nervously drinking a coffee someone put in his hands. Beckett is treating it like the work of the serial killer Castle knows all too well.

He still feels responsible for Jerry Tyson being free out there. He can't get it out of his head that this is the real estate agency he hired to look for an apartment for Kate; at the same time, he feels chills whenever he looks down the alley because it's so very close in appearance to the one in Washington Heights that held the body of her mother.

He hasn't brought this up yet either. Hasn't brought up the way this woman, _Roma her name is Roma_, has been positioned against the brick, the way it mirrors her mother's body in those photographs. Because that's ridiculous. It can't be an homage to Johanna Beckett's murder; it can't be. Those photos have never been released to the public, and they're damn inconvenient to find even if you are allowed official access.

It can't be. It's just. . .his brain working overtime.

He sips it again and forgets how hot it is, burns the top of his mouth.

Beckett comes over when she finishes her grid, spreads the map out onto the fold down tabletop in the back of the van. She marks numbers based on the notes in her hand, looks up for a second to catch Castle staring at her, goes back to meticulously detailing the scene. When she's done, she's still staring down at the map, but he doesn't think she really sees it.

He wonders for a second if she's seen what he has, the similarities, but nothing on her face gives her away.

"He still has Ryan's badge and gun," Beckett says softly, her hands spread on the map, not looking at him.

Castle nods. "Yeah." Again his fault.

She takes a breath. "I called the Captain. He sent a couple of uniforms to your building."

Horror washes over him and he pulls out his phone, calls Alexis, his eyes searching Kate's face. His daughter answers on the third ring, chipper and oblivious.

"Hey Dad. I thought you were on a date with Detective Beckett?" Obvious in the question is, _Why are you calling me?_

"Yeah, I was," he answers, forcing normalcy into his voice. "But we caught a body. So don't wait up for me."

"Oh darn. It interrupted your date!"

"Yeah, well that's how things go." He wants to get off the phone; he wants to not bring his daughter's voice into the blood and death.

"Sorry, Dad. Was it okay though? I mean, you didn't do anything to-"

"Hey now, what do you take me for?" he says, giving her a little chuckle to keep things on an even tone. Light, humorous, that's him.

She laughs. "Okay, okay. Well, go catch a killer, Dad. See you later."

"Yeah." He can hear her about to end the call, her attention dissolving. "Hey, Alexis?"

"Yeah?" Her voice comes from a long way off, like she's already brought the phone away from her ear.

"I love you, pumpkin."

"Love you too, Dad."

He ends the call, grips the phone a little harder, tries to recover.

Kate's voice surprises him. "Castle."

He rubs his hand down his face. "Yeah."

"If we weren't in front of half the department, I'd do something about that look on your face."

Well, shit. He lifts his startled face to see her and gets that smile without teeth, the sly one, secret, pleased with herself smile.

"Looks like I didn't need to do that anyway."

"But you still will? Later?" he asks, rising to her bait.

"Mm, maybe. If you're lucky."

He scowls, glances past her to the crime scene techs still going over the scene. The body has been gone for an hour now, back to the morgue with Lanie, but the alley hasn't lost that sense of lingering evil.

"I'm not that lucky."

* * *

><p>She's glad for the .38 special in her clutch as she and Castle arrive back at her apartment. She draws her weapon even as Ryan pulls the Crown Vic up to the curb (she thought it wouldn't be smart to hail a cab right outside the crime scene, just in case Tyson is setting something up). Ryan kills the engine, and Kate grabs Castle's forearm.<p>

"Exit on my side. We'll get inside the building quickly. Don't go anywhere ahead of me."

"You don't have a vest on," he hisses. Ryan does. It's not that she expects bullets; she doesn't. Tyson likes his kills up close.

"Castle," she warns and stares him down until she sees acquiescence in his expression.

She and Ryan pop open their doors at the same time, sweep the streets with their eyes, weapons at their sides. As soon as Castle is out, Ryan locks it behind them and brings up the rear. As a unit, they enter the lobby of her apartment and start up the stairs.

Fourth floor walk up. She's not sure if she'd rather be looking around every landing for a killer with a rope or if she'd rather ride up in the safety of an elevator and have the doors open on a surprise.

At her place, she inspects the door for tampering then unlocks it. Ryan stays in the hallway to guard their rear as she enters and sweeps the place, room by room, Castle at her heels.

"Clear."

Ryan comes inside and locks the door.

"Castle, you want to change, or are you good?"

He looks at her, face inscrutable. "You have clothes for me to change into?"

She blinks. "Ah, no." She will not admit that she has a tshirt of his that she borrowed/stole when she stayed with him after her apartment blew up. And on second thought, she's not sure she wants him changing into a pair of Josh's sweat pants. Which the man never came back for. Which. . .wouldn't fit Castle all that well anyway.

He gives a sigh, of relief?, and nods like this is the answer he likes. "I'm good."

"Okay, help yourselves to whatever you want while I get ready." She bends down in front of him, one hand on his shoulder for balance as she slips off her heels. Castle's hand comes up to steady her, his fingers like hot coals on her elbow, branding her at each point of contact.

When she's got her shoes off, and has lost a couple of inches, she sees Ryan from the corner of her eye, giving her a know-it-all smirk that she will, _will,_ wipe off his face later, but Castle is giving her a slow perusal that turns her insides to mush.

She can't do this right now. Not right now. "Later," she says, very softly, for his ears only.

And then she turns and heads for her bedroom and the safety of a closed door.

* * *

><p>Ryan sits down on the couch, hands clasped between his knees, his face carefully neutral. "Captain sent a couple of uniforms to your place," he says.<p>

Castle nods. He's standing behind the couch, looking at the back of Ryan's head, halfway towards where he wants to be- -in that bedroom with her.

"And mine. Jenny. . .is there alone."

"Shit." Castle rubs another hand down his face, shrugs out of the suit jacket that is suddenly too tight. "I didn't think of that."

"Beckett did. Do you think he really. . .I mean, what would be the point?"

"No point. I don't think he would," Castle says, and he doesn't entirely mean it, but he's not above lying to keep Ryan from needlessly worrying. "He left you alive, left us both alive; he doesn't care about you, Ryan."

Ryan nods, looks over his shoulder to give him a self-deprecating grin. "First time I'm glad for that."

"Yeah. It's me, probably. He made a point of messing with me. He's probably messing with me now."

"You didn't know the real estate agent."

"No." Castle loosens his tie.

"But you used their services."

He chokes on a laugh. "Yes. Sounds nasty when you say it like that."

But Ryan doesn't laugh. "And that's it?"

"That's it." He still hasn't mentioned the way the scene looks so eerily familiar. He won't. He will wait for someone else to bring that up because surely, surely, it is his overactive imagination.

"He has my gun and badge." Ryan rubs his hands together, stares at his palms, fingers spread wide before him.

Castle unbuttons the top two buttons on his dress shirt, the french blue shirt that he knows he's seen Kate eye before. "Yeah."

"I've been. . .trying not to think about that, this whole time. But we alerted authorities, nation-wide I mean: local police, FBI, you name it. We put it out there. I can only hope they've been paying attention."

"Yeah." Castle hears something drop in the bedroom, half-steps towards it, but makes himself stop, wait, his jacket and tie in his arms.

"I had to get a new number, you know. New badge and gun, of course, but they issued me a new number. It was. . .humiliating."

Castle glances over at Ryan, huddled on the couch. "I didn't. . .ask. It didn't occur to me."

"Yeah, well, I'm kinda glad you didn't," he says, laughing hollowly. "Not my proudest moment."

"If he'd used it, Ryan, we'd have known by now. We'd have found the bastard. He took it to mess with your head, to mess with all of us."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what Beckett said."

"Because it's true." He moves around the couch and sits in Kate's plushy, comfortable chair. He sinks into it for a second, but then struggles up to lean forward and look at Ryan. "If he'd used it, he'd bring all kinds of hell raining down on him. He's smart; he won't try it."

"Yeah, he's smart." Ryan winces and looks up at Castle, his eyes troubled. "He's too smart, Castle. I mean, you and Beckett, me and Esposito, together we're good. But is he better?"

* * *

><p>Kate strips off the dress and drops it in the floor, heads for her bottom drawer and her jeans. She usually tries to dress more professionally, but it's late and she'll be at the 12th for the foreseeable future, so she's giving in to her craving for comfort. She tugs on her jeans, zips and buttons them, and goes back to the dress.<p>

She brushes it out, picks a dustball off the skirt, and takes it to her closet. She hangs it up over the top of her door, as a reminder and as a warning both. This is what Castle is like. He bullies his way into a first date and buys her the dress he wants to see her in. It doesn't matter that she likes the dress, that it's perfect on her, that she would have agonized over her clothes in nothing but a towel for hours if he hand't bought it. Doesn't matter. Not the point.

What is the point?

Castle's different. Castle is not like her, doesn't live like the rest of them. Her own family comes from some money; she went to private schools and had resources. She went to Cornell for a semester before transferring to NYU for their criminal law program. Her old apartment, her poor bombed out apartment, was a place that her mother's family had for a long time. Rent-controlled, of course, and in a very good section. And now it's gone.

The building manager has, of course, renovated the apartment. But her rent-controlled lease has effectively been broken by the explosion. So it's out of her league, and the apartment that her mother's family held for nearly a century is now lost as well.

So many things. Is it really the job? Or just the trajectory of her life? Before the murder, her family was mostly normal, if a little more wealthy than the average New Yorker. Her mother, a fan of Italian opera and art gallery openings, disdained Kate's love of baseball games and Russian literature. Kate, ever the wild tomboy, took up anything that might make her mother furious.

Because her mother was always so controlled, so perfect, so in control, and Kate just wanted to mess with her. Kate picked Russian when her mother wanted her to learn French; Kate dated a boy with a faux hawk and a motorcycle because her mother had set her up with the son of one of the state senators. Just how they worked. She was close to her mother, but she was also constantly trying to break away from her.

If her mother had never died, Kate wondered what kind of person she'd be now. She'd been studying French literature to appease her mother a little, but she had a semester in Ukraine to make her point. At the time, the UN had attracted her and she had a facility with languages.

But that changed. Things changed. She's spent the rest of her life trying to emulate her mother's control. In college, she switched to criminal law because her mother was a lawyer and because she had some idea that things should have gone differently with her mother's case. Something else should've been done. But it wasn't until she graduated college, saw her father's abysmal descent into alcohol, that she realized she wanted to be a cop and not a lawyer. The law was too slow, took too long to get anything accomplished. She would be a better cop than the ones who investigated her mother's case.

A detective. A solver of the unsolvable.

But serial killers?

God, it scares the crap out of her, for more reasons than she likes to admit. Because the guy is weird about Castle. Because Castle should've been dead when Kate came in that motel room door too late. Because serial killers have a psychosis to them that is freaky. Evil.

She knows Castle felt it too, back at the scene. And she doesn't want to get in to that right now, not the weird stuff, not the skin crawling stuff. She asked the crime scene guys and Castle to take photos because of that feeling, but she wants there to be an explanation for it. A normal one.

Dressed in a soft cotton, three-quarter length jersey shirt and jeans, she straps in her badge and gun, then drops the chain with her mother's ring over her head. She kisses the band and lets it fall to her chest. Breathes.

Ready. Ready now for whatever comes.

She hopes.


	4. Chapter 4

**thanks to everyone who's reading. just to let you know, I've got a three day trip coming up with no internet access, so it will be awhile before the next chapter gets posted. thanks for being patient.**

* * *

><p>Castle leaves his jacket and tie in the Crown Vic as a kind of insurance. He wants to be sure that if Kate leaves, he leaves with her. No matter what or who Tyson might be targeting, he wants Kate at his side. He can't stand to not be near her, to not know.<p>

Back upstairs in Homicide, Castle assigns himself with getting everyone coffee while Beckett creates the murder board. She likes to arrange things just so; she's picky about where to put things; she often frowns when someone else writes on it in sloppy or careless handwriting. So he leaves her to it.

Ryan and Esposito are pulling the old files on Jerry Tyson. But Kate wants them to look at this one fresh, before they read over the known victims, just in case it's a copycat or some fluke, a coincidence. No one thinks it is, but she keeps warning them that assuming too much is going to be what bites them in the ass. Like Gates.

Four cups of coffee later, brought out two at a time, Castle is sitting in his chair in front of the board, the boys with their arms crossed are standing in front of it, and Kate, her tongue touching her top lip, fills in the last of a column of physical traits on the victim.

"All right. Before we get into Tyson, let's run through what we've got," she says.

Esposito pulls out his notebook. "Roma Haskins. Age 31. Blonde, blue eyes. Five foot three. Single."

Kate taps the dry erase marker next to each point she's already gotten on the board while Esposito reads it off his notes.

"Real estate agent for Callhoun & Clay. Body found at 8:43 by a street guy, propped up against the brick wall of the next door bar, one Arcade Brewery. Upscale place. Specialty dark beers."

A flicker of a smile from Ryan at Esposito's 'pertinent' detail.

"Ryan, you got the notes from the interview with our finder?"

He nods and flips over a page on his pad. "Real estate agency wasn't closed for the night until 7. I interviewed the homeless man myself; he dumpster dives over there every night at the same time, because the bar takes out their trash at 8:30. He was a little late tonight on account of a fight he ran into."

"Ran into?" Castle asks, eyebrows raised, smelling a story.

Ryan grins, some of that fresh-faced, eager sarcasm coming back to him. "Yeah. Mr. Alvin Fuessel. He was pretty banged up. Bloody eye. The tech had to swab him so they could rule him out."

Beckett caps the pen with a loud click. "What makes us so sure it wasn't Mr. Alvin Fuessel?"

Ryan shrugs, but it's clear he knows the answer. "First of all, the guy was a little soused. Reeked of the stuff. Wild Turkey I'd guess. Also, he's got some kind of condition. Cerebral palsy maybe? His left foot is turned in, left side hangs up." Ryan demonstrates by drawing his left hand in, almost unconsciously. "So Mr. Fuessel got into the middle of a fight over scrap rights about four blocks down. He lost. Busted lip, eyebrow has a gash in it, cut on his arm. We sent him to the hospital with a unie; he'll sleep it off in the tank at the 5th."

Kate taps her chin with the capped marker and looks at the board. "Okay, Alvin goes here." She uncaps the marker and makes a neat headline with the name on the far right side. She adds his vital stats, paltry as they are, then marks the timeline with the times they know. C&C Real Estate closes at 7. 8:30 trash dump from Arcade Brewery. Body discovery at 8:43.

She glances back to Ryan. "And the Brewery?"

"Yeah. I confirmed with the night manager at Arcade about the trash. He said it's possible that it went out as early at 8:20 tonight, but not any later than 8:30."

Kate revises the board. 8:20-8:30 trash dump.

Ryan continues. "C&C co-owner Mark Callhoun was the one I got when I called. He came down to the scene, and even though we had a firm ID since the vic had her stuff on her, he wanted to look to be sure. Said he couldn't believe it. He did admit he'd been having an affair with her."

Castle watches Kate's eyebrows raise. "Really. He just came right out with that."

"Yeah. He said he loved her, in the process of divorcing his estranged wife. He said if we needed anything, let him know."

"Well, this might not be Tyson," Kate says. "Could be some kind of lover's spat. Someone jealous."

Castle just stares at her, then shakes his head. "You don't really think that."

She sighs. "No. But let's keep it in mind." She adds Callhoun's name and info. "Esposito, start with him. Just. . .anything you can find. He has an alibi, I'm assuming?"

Ryan flips another page. "Yeah. I've got one of the uniforms checking it out. Bar. Lots of people. When I get it confirmed, I'll let you know."

She keeps the space next to alibi blank, Castle notices. Like she hopes for holes in his story to crop up. Honestly, he does too. It would make things easier.

"Neighborhood canvas?" she asks, turning back to Esposito.

"We got nada."

"You're kidding."

"I wish. Nothing. No one heard anything, saw anything. I pulled surveillance cameras from the real estate office's security system, and from the Brewery-both of them rather high tech. The apartments across the street were a little less helpful. We'll have to get a warrant to dump their video."

Castle sighs. His neighborhood, his people. He feels a little responsible for their uncooperative attitude, even though it's got nothing to do with him. Probably just in the mood to take the blame or something. He rubs at his eyes and feels Beckett nudge his leg with her knee.

"We keeping you up, Castle?"

He looks up and yeah, she's distant-sounding, but there's a tenderness at the back of her eyes he's never seen before. She's being a smartmouth, but she's worried about him. He sits up straighter and resolves not to be another thing she's got to worry about.

"I'm awake. Keep going."

"Not much else to add," she says with a sigh. "I want to interview Alvin Fuessel myself, soon as he sobers up. We'll put in a call for a warrant on the security cameras from across the street. Cross check Callhoun's alibi for tonight. We have a small window of time to work with. I'm hoping Lanie can provide us with some forensics that will tell us where this woman was killed. We'll check out her apartment tomorrow. For now, guys, we'll call it a night. Go home, be safe. Meet back here at 7 tomorrow morning."

It's kind of redundant, saying that to a handful of cops, but Castle figures it's as close as the three detectives are going to get to acknowledging the very real threat Tyson poses. A killer who knows their faces, has had a year or so to plan things out, and has the intelligence to pull it off is not exactly no big deal. It's a huge deal. Castle wants them all to drop the case and head out of town for a couple of weeks, let someone else, someone Tyson doesn't know, work this case. Let Tyson play around with someone else. Not the boys. Not him. Not Kate.

The boys turn and grab their stuff, talking to each other about grabbing a late dinner, while Beckett heads back to her desk. She sits down, starts sifting through case reports until she finds what she's looking for. One Tyson's earliest murders. At least, one they can pin on him. Castle is a little surprised she's settling in, looking like she's actually going to work. But he shouldn't be. Even though he managed to wrangle Kate into a little black dress for a dinner date this evening, she's still Detective Beckett. She doesn't always know how to stop.

"You're not taking your own advice, Detective."

"I just want to bring myself up to speed."

"You're already up to speed," he chides.

"I want to keep it fresh."

"So do that at home, Kate." He takes the folder from her and puts it on top of the stack. "We can do that at home." He won't touch her; he's afraid there are rules already that he doesn't know about. Rules about them, about where and when they can *be* them. He knows breaking those rules will get him dropped pretty quickly. He holds his breath and tries to crush the need to take her hand.

She won't look at him for a long time. "Whose home?" she says finally.

He blinks. Tries to form words that will not get him smacked, tries to speak before he loses his chance. "Mine." He breathes in. "Are you coming?"

She lifts her eyes; the hunger in them is like a blow. He'd drop to his knees if he wasn't already sitting.

"Let me put in the calls. And then. . .we'll go home."

Holy. . .mother of. . .

Castle manages a nod. Feels his heart racing. His palms sweaty. Tries to keep control. If he knows Kate Beckett at all, they'll spend all night hashing out the information they have on Tyson, going over it and over it, and then maybe she'll agree to sleep on his couch for a couple hours before they head back to the precinct. That's fine. It's not the night he wants to spend with her, but. . .it's the night he wants to spend with her.

Any night he can get her.


	5. Chapter 5

She does exactly what he expected: brings the old case files with her and the detectives' notes. She carries them against her chest as they stand in the elevator, carefully away from him.

He told her earlier this week that this was their time, their only time, and he plans to make it count. Even with this, Tyson or whoever it is, he's not going to let the time pass him by. He's going to ask for her hand, if that makes any sense. A little old-fashioned maybe, but he figures he's been courting her since he got to the station three years ago, proving himself worthy, and now it's time to step it up.

Make his intentions known.

Besides that, Kate won't let him near her if he goes at this like he normally would. She's spent three years ignoring every single one of his best lines, and neatly sidestepping his plays for attention. So a normal Castle smooth-talking plan won't work (and hasn't).

When the elevator opens, he takes her by the elbow and leads her down the hall to his apartment door. She doesn't pull away, which is strange for her, but he figures she's tired. When he puts his key into the lock though, he sees something else in her eyes. Something sensual and longing. His gut clenches, and he has trouble getting the door open.

Alexis's light is out upstairs; his mother comes to the balcony railing in a robe with her sleep mask in one hand. "I'm going to bed, dear. Early start tomorrow."

"Thanks, Mother. Night."

She disappears as he locks the door behind them.

"Did you see the unmarked car out there?" Kate says softly.

He startles at the sound of her voice. "No. Did you?"

"Yeah."

"They saw you then. That's what you mean."

She glances at him, a furrow marking a line down her forehead. "No. That's not what I mean."

Something eases in his chest. "Oh."

"I don't like that Tyson is back. I don't like not knowing whether or not he's targeting you, Castle."

"I don't either."

"I mean, the connection between you and Callhoun Real Estate is so slim. It could just be a coincidence."

"You think it is?" He takes the files from her hands and drops them on the coffee table. She still stands in his foyer, now with her hands at her sides, looking uncertain.

She shakes her head wordlessly at him and lets him draw her towards the couch.

"Before we jump into the case," he says, gesturing at the case files. "Let me do this first." Castle leans in and wraps his fingers around her elbows, pulls her closer to him, lets her get used to the idea. She blinks, but doesn't seem to mind his encroachment. When that stunned look fades, Castle brushes his thumbs across her skin and hauls her closer so he can slide his arms around her waist.

Kate doesn't move away, doesn't block him. After a long moment in which he silently urges her on, Kate brings her hands up to his chest, her fingers splayed.

He grins at her, his breathing easier, and leans down to press his mouth to that smooth-looking spot in front of her ear, along her cheekbone. He feels her take a shuddering breath as his lips brush her skin. Her fingertips press hard against him. Kate turns her head, dislodging his kiss, and raises up on her tiptoes to push into him. Their mouths align.

The kiss is wet and slow, growing ever more intense the deeper it gets. Castle presses his palm against her lower back, pulling her against him, cradles her neck. Her hands slide up to his shoulders, trails of fire, and she captures his ears as she kisses him. Her mouth is warm, hot, and his arms tighten around her. She doesn't let up, doesn't back down, lets her tongue slide against his teeth.

He has to breathe. He doesn't want to stop, but he has to breathe.

Castle manages to break free long enough to suck in air like a drowning man, but with her hands at his ears he can't go far. She pants, her chest moving against his, hot little puffs of moist breath in his ear, her fingers spreading out and combing through his hair.

He doesn't let go of her body, can't. He's trembling or she is, one of them or both of them, and he's not sure he can get his arms to unlock even if she wanted him to.

She doesn't seem to want him to.

* * *

><p>Kate knows this is the worst idea he's had yet. But she can't seem to stop her body from crowding into his, close and tight, hot. She wants more of it. She wants to pretend there was never any call tonight, never any Jerry Tyson, and most of all, never a reason to stop Castle.<p>

She kisses him again, slow and sweet. She lets him pull away to breathe, again; she realizes she's smiling. Barely, but it's still there, warm and heavy in her chest and blooming on her face. She wants to be closer, wants to press her nose into his neck, wants to wrap her legs around his waist, hide out in him.

But she doesn't.

She pushes back at the moment she realizes where her head is, where her mouth is, and takes a step away from him. He's breathing hard, looking sexily mussed and adorably confused, and she has to dig her nails into her fists to keep from leaning towards him.

"Not right now, Castle."

But her voice is throaty, weak, and lacks all conviction. He steps in again and recaptures her hips with his hands; when did his hands get so wide and strong? She trembles with the effort of holding back, closes her eyes so she doesn't have to see the need in his face.

"Right now, Kate."

She shivers, his voice husky in her ear and doing things to her body. She sways, feels herself leaning into him, tries to control her fall.

"No other time but now, Kate."

She finds herself pressing her cheek into his, her hands taking fistfuls of his shirt as if she needs to hang on. She does need to hang on. She can't help herself. She wants him.

Oh God. There's no time for this.

"This is the only time, Kate."

His mouth trails along her jaw, down the line of her throat, his teeth bumping her collarbone. She stumbles against him when he sucks lightly at her skin, smooths it with his tongue. She has to stop this. They have work to do. Have to catch Tyson, once and for all, so she doesn't have to worry about him, so she doesn't-

Oh. Oh. . .

"N-no," she stutters, breaking away from him again, from his mouth on her.

"What?" he gasps, and opens his eyes to stare at her.

Oh that's worse, even. The look of wild abandon on his face, the need and love.

She closes her eyes, puts a hand up to her mouth to swallow down her own need. She can't. Not now. Not love.

She hears his soft sigh, feels his hands rub up and down her arms, gentling her. She's not an animal in heat, but she's surprised to find that it works; it helps. Her nerve endings unwind, her breathing evens out.

He pulls her in for a tight hug, quickly lets her go. "Back to work."

She opens her eyes. Nods. "Back to work."


	6. Chapter 6

"Pretty blonde girls laid out like they're asleep, or in a coffin; hands clasped over their stomachs."

"Like his mother," Castle adds, settling back into his couch with a beer; he still has his suit on, the tie. Kate in jeans and a shirt, pushing her shoes off, fiddling with the chain around her neck. She's sitting on the edge of the couch, looking both uncomfortable and stern, weapon still strapped in place. She wouldn't take a beer.

"Like his mother," she agrees.

"Usually in their apartments," he says. "Except for today's. And Linda Russo."

She glances over at him, her shoes in her hand, and drops them beside the couch. "You remember her name."

Castle looks back at her. Of course he remembers her name. "In the other murders, the stranglings, were they all in the apartment?"

"All found in their apartments, yes." Kate says, and Castle tugs on his collar, unbuttons it a little.

"Proving that he can do it. That no one is safe," Castle says, rubbing at his neck.

Kate grins slowly at him, watches him loosen his tie. "You want to change, Castle? You look like that tie is strangling you."

His head jerks up, looks at her. Strangling him? Kate's grin disappears as she realizes what she's said.

"I meant. . ." She waves at his suit, then rubs her hand over her face. "Go change, Castle. Get in something more comfortable."

"Wait, isn't that my line?"

She lifts her face to throw him a glare, and he concedes defeat and stands up, heading for his bedroom. "Read up on the case files. Then you can quiz me."

"It's not an exam," she mutters, but he's already pulling the door closed behind him.

He's tempted to leave the door open a crack. She would know what he's up to though. She wouldn't appreciate it like he wants her to. Darn.

He strips the tie through the collar, unbuttons the dress shirt, peels it off. Then his undershirt, all of it in a heap on the floor. His suit jacket is. . .still in her car. Oh well, he'll leave it there. Gives him something to go back for, to walk out with her. He pulls of his pants and hangs them up, puts the hangar back on the doorknob to his closet. Jeans in the bottom drawer. He yanks them on, a little surprised at how snug they've gotten.

Mental note: no more Oreos after dinner.

Just because he can, because some devil in him tells him to, he pulls out one of his new tshirts. Alexis got it for him for his birthday and it says, So far, this is the oldest I've ever been. Clever right? He wonders if she'll try to hide a smile when she sees it. She does that sometimes. He's not usually so casual around the precinct, in deference to the work, but if she's out there in jeans and a tshirt, he can be to. He holds the shirt up to his nose and sniffs it to be sure. He's got a woman who comes in and cleans, does laundry, but sometimes. . .well, you never know. This one is clean, and still so new that it smells like cotton and detergent, so he pulls it on over his head.

Navy shirt, jeans, what else? He takes a cautious smell of his armpits and wrinkles his nose. Reapply. The deodorant stick is in his bathroom, and once he's there, he brushes his teeth as well. He's taking too long. He's not a girl; get back out there.

Castle heads for the living room, back out in front of her, waiting for her approval.

She's not there.

He glances around, sees her coming from the bathroom upstairs, sees her walk slowly down, trying to be quiet. She doesn't even lift her head. "Look over those files, Castle. Read up."

"I already did. In the car." He sits down on the couch, choosing just to the side of center.

While he was changing, she's pulled her hair back too, all sloppy and adorable, scrubbed some of her make up off her face. She cracks her toes as she walks back to the couch and settles into the corner next to him. She's quite close. It's a sign, a signal. She's saying something by sitting so close to him when she could have sat further away. What is she saying? Maybe she's saying _Soon_. He wants to smile but he won't.

He will. A little smile. Just a little one. He picks up a file from the table at random.

She nudges his thigh with her toe, giving him a look. He grins a little wider.

"Goofy shirt," she says.

"Maybe a little." He glances down, realizes that *he's* the one trying to hide a smile. "It's true though."

"Alexis get you that?" she asks, and he can see it. Just in the corners, lurking. That smile.

"Yeah." He grins now, wider. "Back to the case?" he suggests, handing her the file, looking supremely innocent. Still smiling.

She doesn't take it. "Quiz me, old man."

Isn't that comment just asking him to prove how young he really is? Toss her over his shoulder and carry her off to the bedroom. Yeah, she's asking for it. But he won't.

"You said it wasn't an exam," he mutters, but keeps the Townsend file in his lap. It does make a nice. . .cover up, just in case. He's usually got lots of practice keeping himself under control, but there's something about an interrupted date and the way her hair wants to fall down and the almost smile on her face that is seriously affecting his control. "I hated exams."

"Of course you did; they took too much work. Quiz me, Castle."

"Sara Townsend."

"Sixth victim," she says immediately. "25 years old. Soho apartment. Funeral pose."

Castle rubs a finger over her photo. "Parents, Cal and Marie."

She glances at him, some of the teasing disappearing from her face. "Hey."

He nods; he knows exactly what she's going to say, stuff about not blaming himself, not letting it get to him. And he agrees. He knows. It's just. . .harder to do than to say.

"Rachel Gold."

"First victim. Apartment in West Village. 27. Funeral pose."

"Second victim?" he asks, tossing her a curveball.

She raises an eyebrow as if to ask _Is that the best you can do?_ and says, "Lauren Brackett. Name sticks. Close to mine. Makes it easier to remember."

He nods. "Okay, I think you know these. He has six previous victims. He put himself in prison, basically, because the cable company lady, Linda Russo, made him."

She takes up the thread of the story, pulls her feet up onto the couch. "Meets Marcus Gates in prison, got to talking. I'm guessing Gates was big stuff in prison, with his rap sheet. And Tyson wasn't, especially going in for a drug offense. For a year, right? He played Gates. Said he had drug money, but he just needed help with a few loose ends. What does Gates care who he kills? Remember Gates's face when he saw the search warrant listing all those other girls? He knew then he'd been played."

Castle snorts and drops a hand over her foot. "He played us too." He squeezes her foot. "Played us really well. Masterful. Telling us tidbits. Little details. Were they true? The things he said that Gates said, where those things really about him, the Triple Killer?"

Kate sighs. "I think so. He told us he sometimes works with a partner. That was true. He worked with Gates and with his foster brother, Mc-"

"Sweaty von Sweatsalot," Castle interrupts, grinning. "But I guess Paul McCartle got his heart transplant and all is good? His foster brother is back in Sing Sing."

"Gates, yeah. He went to Sing Sing. Esposito kept tabs on him, just in case. Nothing has popped in the last few months. Jeez, Castle. This was only eight months ago. Not even a year. Tyson has moved fast."

"He's making up for lost time," Castle says, trying to smile but failing. "What about Donna Gallagher? His ex-girlfriend? Gates went to strangle her on Tyson's orders. It was his total lack of interest in her that tipped me off." A damn duffle bag and a callous disregard for his girlfriend.

Kate sits up straight, her eyes searing into his. "Oh God. I hadn't-" She runs a hand down her face and grabs her phone off the coffee table. "I didn't even think of that. I don't know where she is. We haven't kept track of her; she refused police protection when Tyson got away-"

She's got her phone up to ear and is rattling off her badge number now. Castle watches her ask for a protective detail to be put on Donna Gallagher, if she can be found. "And, Mike? Update me, okay? If they don't find her at that address, I need to know ASAP."

Castle squeezes her ankle as she hangs up and taps her forehead with her phone. "It's okay, Kate."

"No, it's not. Damn it. I should've thought of that. She was on his list eight months ago. Tyson will come back for her. He came back for Linda Russo after four years, Castle."

"I know."

"Donna is in trouble. Serious trouble."

"I know."

"How could I not have thought of that?"

"It's been a long night. You just caught this case. Stop blaming yourself."

Their eyes meet at that, and he sees the irony in his telling her the exact same thing she's been trying to tell him all night._ It's not your fault._ Well, okay. It's not. And it is. They're both in this together at least.

_I know the feeling. _

_I know you do._

"We need to find Paul McCartle tomorrow," Kate says finally, dropping her eyes. "And interview Marcus Gates in prison."

"Yeah."

"We'll talk to Donna too, if the uniforms find her. If not, then we need to find her before Tyson does."

Castle is looking down at the photos Kate printed from her phone of tonight's crime scene. Not the official crime scene photos, but they make do until the lab guys have got them uploaded to the server. He still can't shake how much it mirrors the crime scene photo in her mother's case. But it's not the same. It's not the same. There's no need to get that paranoid. Only. . .it's such a strange deviation from his m.o. that it bothers Castle.

"Why did he prop her up against the wall?" Castle murmurs, rubbing his thumb on the edge of the photo.

Kate leans in close to him, peering at the poor quality photo. Her chin drops to his shoulder, half of her upper body pressed against his. "That's a good question. It's not the norm. But it is somewhat similar to Linda Russo. Found in an alley. Next victim-if she's found in her apartment, then he's mimicking his kills 8 months ago."

"Rubbing it in. Right in our face." Castle breathes in and out, feels her against his back, wants this to never stop. At the same time, he wishes they were talking about anything other than Jerry Tyson.

Her phone vibrates against his coffee table, and she reaches over to snatch it up. "Beckett."

Castle watches her face as she listens. Bad news. She closes her eyes, nods. "Yeah."

He swallows hard, wishes to God he'd mentioned Donna earlier this evening. He thought of her, in passing in the alley that evening, but it had gone right out of his head again. He hadn't thought she would be in trouble. Just. . .

"Be there in twenty." Kate hangs up, leans her forehead against his shoulder for half a second, just long enough to breathe in. When she lifts her head, she's got her game face on. Stern, hard, undaunted, untouchable.

"Donna?" he asks quietly.

She nods, short, and he can see the shimmer of wet in the corner of her eyes.

So he leans in, presses his lips to her forehead, and then gets off the couch, away from her.

Because if she was asking for it before, she's begging for it now.


	7. Chapter 7

She watches him leave a note for Alexis, the blocky script almost shaky in his haste. Or dread.

Or arousal. She sees that too. She's not stupid.

It might be a little bit her fault. She does like to tease him. Well, of course it's her fault. The idea of another murder isn't what's got him flustered.

Kate hides a smile and wipes a hand across her mouth, sets her face.

Donna Gallagher is dead. She should have thought of it earlier. Damn, she was distracted by Castle and now someone is dead. God, that's a terrible thought. That's a self-destructive thought, as her psychologist might have said. If she were stupid, she might unwittingly assume Castle is the cause, thus aligning him with things she should avoid rather than things that actually help her.

Donna Gallagher was killed by Jerry Tyson, not by her interest in Castle, not Castle himself. It's not Castle's fault. She hates that she feels the need to remind herself of that. And she's suddenly really grateful for Dr. Connors, who insisted she get that lesson drilled into her head every session. _Your mother's death is not your fault._

"Ready," he says and reaches out as if he's going to hold her hand.

Getting distracted by Castle might not be the reason Donna's dead, but it doesn't mean she's going to hold his freaking hand on the way to a murder scene. "Are you kidding me?" she says and stalks ahead of him to the door and into the hall. She doesn't wait for him to lock it before she's heading towards the elevator and pushing the call button.

He makes a stand beside her after a moment of juggling his keys and phone, and then he snags her hand, tightly, and squeezes it. "Not kidding you."

Kate arches an eyebrow and looks at him, but his courage must only go so far: he doesn't meet her eyes; he steadfastly studies the approaching elevator as it lights up the floor numbers. She huffs out a breath but doesn't pry his fingers off.

In the car, he's quiet. She's grateful for the silence. Grateful, too, that he doesn't keep her hand, that he knows enough to let her remake her professional exterior before they confront another murder. He knows her. And she knows him.

Having him silent in the passenger seat makes her both stronger and weaker. She's not sure how she feels about that. Only that she needs it. The strength. And the weakness.

But does it make her a better detective or a better woman?

* * *

><p>Rick hears their footsteps on the wooden floor. Her converse sneakers are mostly silent, but his Fly London leather sneakers, even though rubber-soled and quite beautiful (if he does say so himself: he thinks of them as his Firefly shoes), his high-tops screech down the hall. (Hey, he can wear high-tops to a crime scene with his jeans if Kate can wear converse Chucks. Right? Now he's worried about crime scene etiquette. Is there crime scene etiquette? Someone should write a book.)<p>

They travel past the officer guarding the door to Donna Gallagher's apartment. Past the crime tech guy squatting over some tag labeling dust on the chair rail in the foyer. Past the officer in the hallway to the living room.

In the living room. He feels a little punchy maybe because it's her. It's Donna. Someone he actually spoke to and helped keep safe. And now. . .

On the floor, Donna Gallagher is laid out as if for her funeral, hands pressed to her abdomen, eyes closed, strangulation marks on her neck. Castle remembers her from eight months ago, rubbing at her neck where Gates tried to do this very thing to her. Like foreshadowing. But this is no scene in his novel. He squeezes his hands into fists and tries not to look at her too closely.

Lanie stands up, brushes a curl out of her eyes and frowns at them. "I haven't even gotten a chance to start the Haskins autopsy."

"Hi to you too, Lanie," Kate says.

Castle turns as Esposito walks up with his notebook out. "Ryan's canvassing the neighbors already."

"You talk to the uniform who found her?" Kate asks, glancing back to Gallagher. Her eyes trace the scene; Castle watches her take it all in, absorb it. He wonders where it goes when the case is over. Does she have a safe place to wring out all the terrible things she's seen?

That's a Nikki Heat kind of question. He's not sure Kate would even know what he meant if he asked her that.

Esposito gives a look to Lanie, but addresses Beckett. "Yeah, Mike Collins. You want my notes, or you want to talk to him yourself?"

Kate clenches her jaw. "I'll talk to him. I'm the one who sent him over here."

"He's out here. I'll get him." Esposito heads further into the apartment, towards what looks like the kitchen.

Kate is already studying the body again. "Lanie?"

"It's the same, as far as my preliminary investigation goes. Found fibers in the marks on her neck. She's got some skin fragments under her nails, so I'm going to bag her hands, soon as you release the body."

"Your guys photo this?"

"Yup. Just waiting on you."

Castle watches Kate squat down next to Donna's body; she raises a hand and Lanie slaps gloves into her palm. Castle shakes his head when Lanie offers him a pair, instead shoves his hands into his pockets. He doesn't want to touch. Not this one.

Kate pulls on the brilliant blue gloves, reaches down to brush a strand of hair from Donna's neck. Castle watches Kate because he can't look at Donna that long without wanting to destroy something, hit something, make something break. His fists are in his jean pockets but it makes the material strain against his thighs. He feels like Hulk, right before he bursts out of his clothes. It's not a good feeling.

He steps away, turns his back on the scene. Esposito is bringing Mike back from the kitchen. Mike Collins. Good name, good upstanding officer, looks a little pale but not sick, not pissed either, like Castle. Professional.

Kate stands up, peels the gloves off, gives them back to Lanie.

"Mike."

"Detective Beckett," he says, shakes her hand with a nod. Castle is surprised when Mike nods to him as well, including him in the brotherhood. "Mr. Castle."

"It's Rick," he says automatically, shakes the man's hand. Something in his chest eases even while the officer's hand squeezes a little tighter.

"Mike, tell me what you found when you got here," Kate interrupts, pulling the officer's attention back to herself.

"Door looked closed, but it wasn't. When I knocked, it popped open. I pulled my weapon and came in using the Weaver stance, cleared the rooms starting in here first, and then along the hall. She was lying in the living room, just like this, two cups of water on the kitchen counter. But no one else was here."

"Anything feel off or strange when you entered?"

"It felt wrong, yeah." Collins shifts on his feet, which says to Castle that he's not comfortable admitting this. "From the moment I tapped on the door, it felt wrong; before that even. Honestly, when you called, I expected to find her and just sit on her place. Not. . .this."

Kate glances around the room, sizing it up. "You think anyone got past you?"

Collins straightens up. "No, ma'am. No, ma'am. I had the door in view for most of my sweep, did not leave the hallway when I checked the rooms."

"Look in closets?"

"No ma'am. I held my weapon at the ready until backup arrived."

"Check the closets with backup?"

"Yes ma'am, we did do the full search when backup arrived."

"I'm not grilling you, Mike. Just curious. Who was your backup?"

"Kruk, that's David Krukow, and D'angelo Finney. We cleared the scene together."

"Good job, Mike. Thanks. You talked to Esposito?"

The two men acknowledged each other and Mike gave her a nod. "Yes, ma'am."

"Be available for follow-up, but that's all for now."

Castle watches Collins leave the room and then turns his eyes back to Kate. She's touring the living room, looking in drawers, poking behind things. Castle follows along behind her, tries to figure out what she's looking for. He's never been good at thinking like a police detective, but he has been helpful thinking like a writer.

He wanders away from her, his hands still in his pockets. She's touching things without gloves, but the detectives often do that. They'll do a grid for the crime scene and take fingerprints of everyone on the team who responded to the call, and then leave it to the tech guys to sort out the mess. He always thought that it was a clean scene every time, but it seems like that's another television myth. Still, if he were to write about a detective putting her fingers all over the scene, getting her prints everywhere, no one would believe him. His editor would circle it in red.

Kate gets to poke, prod, open things up. He does too, because his fingerprints are on file, and they all know him here, but he still keeps his hands in his pockets. He's not sure why. He usually pokes his nose into everything. He's like that. But somehow, knowing that Donna Gallagher was targeted by Tyson and that now she's dead. . .

It puts a damper on things. No doubt. It pisses him off too. If he didn't have his hands in his pockets, he might break something. It's almost like he feels responsible for Donna's safety and well-being all because he was the one to think of her.

"Castle."

"Here," he says and follows the sound of her voice into the kitchen.

"What do you think about this?" She gestures to the counter, her bottom lip in her teeth.

"Forgot to clean up after herself. Or Jerry was enjoying a friendly visit before he strangled her."

She nods, slowly, but her face is still creased with worry. Worry.

"Why?" He can't fathom why she's so. . .freaked out by this. "Kate. What's going on?"

She shakes her head, purses her mouth, glances around the kitchen. "She let him in. Gave him a glass of water. Why would she do that?"

Castle blinks. How has he missed this? Donna Gallagher knew Jerry Tyson, knew him for the man he is. The police tried to get her a protective detail eight months ago, but she refused it. She knew Tyson targeted her back then; she would never have let him inside.

"The partner," Castle supplies, rubs a hand down his face, feeling weary all of the sudden. "He's admitted to working with a partner before. He's got a partner now."

"A partner who convinced her to let him in, get her some water. How, Castle? How is that possible? This was a woman who let in Marcus Gates and was nearly strangled to death. Eight months isn't long enough to start trusting people again, eight months is not long enough to start letting strange men in your apartment. It doesn't make sense."

"I don't know. I don't have any answers for you," he admits, staring down at the blue countertop, the two glasses, both with a finger's width of water in the bottom. "The partner was here awhile. Say she filled the glasses even half full. He was here long enough for both of them to drink it down."

"Did you see Collins's face when he talked about being first on scene? He made a point to mention the two cups, made a point to mention to me that no one else was here." She talks slowly, leaning a hip against the counter and meeting his eyes. "He was spooked when he came in. I've known Mike for years now, and I've never seen him look like that."

"He found a dead woman."

"He's been on scene with me before."

"Yeah, but he found her, Kate. That's got to make a difference."

"I thought for sure he was going to tell me that he thought someone was here when he got here. That's what his whole set up sounded like, mentioning the two cups, mentioning that no one was here."

Castle straightens up, glances over his shoulder as if someone might appear around the corner. "Are you serious?"

"You don't feel it?"

He shrugs. "No. I don't. But I also wasn't making the connection about the two cups, the unlocked door."

"Remember Kim Foster? Inside her apartment, you figured out that the throw pillows-"

"Yeah, I remember. The whole couch was off, her being an interior decorator."

"It feels off in here to me. Can you look around? See if anything. . .strikes you as wrong?"

It scares the crap out of him that Kate is asking him for help. His heart is pounding. "Yeah. I'll look. I'll try."

Suddenly, he remembers the way Kate looked in the interrogation room with Marcus Gates. Gates himself might not have been able to see it, but Castle had: worry. Kate was worried, even nervous as she first interrogated Gates. The man himself was cool and thought himself so clever, making snarky comments about Kate. It was the first time Castle had seen her nervous, and at the time, he assumed it was because she needed to put Gates at the scene and would lose him if he lawyered up.

Now, he's not so sure. She's got that same worried look on her face. Like this might be too much for her. Like this one might be over her head.

"Thanks, Castle."

But she's still staring down at those two cups, staring and chewing on her bottom lip.


	8. Chapter 8

Kate's got two murder boards. Not because there were two murders, but because on one, she's outlined the previous eight murders committed by Jerry Tyson, with and without his partner. The original six strangled women from almost five years ago, and then the two from eight months ago. Now working on filling in the facts on Donna Gallagher, Kate's apprehension fills her up again.

She pauses, takes a step back, and looks at the board. What is it that makes her so. . .uneasy?

While Lanie worked on the autopsies from midnight on, Kate managed to get a few minutes sleep here and there. She sent Castle home to his family and tried to not to think about him, about their interrupted date, about all the promises in his touch. Then Lanie called her thirty minutes ago to say she was finished, so they met up halfway so Lanie could hand off the ME's report.

Kate caps the dry erase marker and sits on the edge of her desk, stares. Something is there. Something fills her with dread, but she can't get at it. Can't yet see it.

She shuffles through the crime scene photos again, fans them out on her desk. After a moment, she props her feet up in Castle's chair, leans her elbows on her knees, and rubs her temples.

"Take some advil, Beckett."

She glances up and is surprised to see Castle walking through the bullpen. "What are you doing here?"

"Couldn't sleep."

She frowns at him as he stops beside her. "Did you even try?" It's only three in the morning. He's still in his goofy tshirt and jeans.

"No."

"Castle."

"You're here. I'm here."

She gives him a look. Where was this attitude when she was filling out paperwork late on a Friday night? "That's new."

He grins. "Yeah it is. I know. This is new too." He might as well have named it out loud, this thing between them.

Kate sighs and glances to the murder board, the photos still spread out under her fingers. Castle knocks his hand into her knees, toppling her from his chair.

"That's mine."

She plants her feet back in his chair.

Castle lays his hand on her knees, his broad palm covers both of them, barely, his fingers twitching. It's three a.m. and no one else is around; her heart pounds suddenly and it's not dread.

Taking a breath, she says, "You weren't here. You snooze, you lose."

She watches him take a quick look around the precinct and then he leans in and puts his mouth to her ear, planting one hand by her hip, keeping his balance with one hand on her knees. "You sleep in with me, Kate, and we both win."

She turns her head just a fraction, enough to let her lips brush the side of his cheek, rough and unshaven, and touches her tongue to her bottom lip, just to let him almost feel it. "Castle?"

He grunts something that might be anything, his fingers on her knees squeezing.

"Get your hands off my crime scene photos. You're smudging them."

He jerks back, giving her time to catch her breath as she pretends to rub fingerprints off the photos using the hem of her tshirt. She pauses at the series of photos showing the kitchen, leafs through those again.

"Castle, take a look at these." She passes them over, glancing at him as she does. "Tell me what you see."

He grunts again, looks both disconcerted and intense, but takes the photos. "What am I looking for?"

"Something is just. . .wrong. I don't know. It's bothering me." She stands up again and heads to the murder board. Behind her, Castle takes her place at the edge of her desk; she can feel him gathering his attention again, focusing on the photos.

"Wrong?"

"Come on, Castle," she sighs. "It's there. I know it. Just. . ."

"It's just the two cups, Kate. Two cups on a kitchen counter, lipstick stains, the water left in the bottom of them, although you can't really see it from this angle-"

"Wait. Wait. What?" She jumps back, hunches over him at the desk, reaches around his shoulder to grab the photo of the cups.

He touches her waist. "You can't see the water at that angle, but she must have-"

"No, the other thing. Where?" She feels his hand at her hip, as if to steady her.

"What? Where what?" He lets go of the photo so she can have it, looking at her so that his face is close, too close.

She straightens up so that his hand dislodges, pulls the photo up close to her nose to study it. "Lipstick stains."

Castle leans forward to look, tapping the photo. "Right there. On the cup."

Orangey-coral. Just a small little smudge, barely there. Lipstick stain. She shoves the photo back at Castle and reaches past him for the ME's report, flipping through the pages to find the prelim exam. Nothing. Nothing. "There's got to be something about this. Lipstick. I just. . ."

"What was it you said earlier? In Donna's apartment."

"I said a lot of things earlier," she murmurs, reading over Lanie's notes. Her friend finished both autopsies in just over three hours, could she have rushed it too much and missed something?

"About being afraid. What did you say Kate? Eight months isn't enough time. . ."

She thumbs through the detailed notes about the weight of each organ, back to the beginning, the visual exam of the body. "Eight months isn't enough time? Oh, it's not enough time to let a strange man in your apartment. She was nearly killed by Marcus Gates; the rope marks around her neck would have only just healed. You don't forget that. A man comes to your door, you don't let him in." She runs her finger down the report. "Lipstick. Coral lipstick."

"Coral?" Castle grunts beside her, starts talking again. "A strange man comes to your door, you don't let him in," he repeats slowly. "You don't let in a strange man. You wouldn't, would you? Maybe she didn't let in a strange man at all."

Nothing. No mention. Is it just not an important detail? She can't remember if other autopsies have mentioned the victim's make up before. "We need to to go the morgue, Castle. I've got to look at Donna's body again." Lipstick. It's haunting her.

She moves around him for her jacket, checks her holster for her gun and badge.

"You wouldn't let in a man. But say a woman buzzes your apartment building, says she has a flat tire. She's desperate. It's been raining-"

"It's not raining," she says distractedly, half listening to him. She pulls out her phone to call Lanie, have her meet them at the morgue. She hates to disturb her, but she needs to see the body. "You coming?"

Castle follows slowly as she makes a dash to the elevator, feeling a sense of urgency. Castle is still talking.

"She just wants to call someone for help. Needs a phone book, doesn't have Triple A on her cell. You pour her some water as she makes her phone call. You wouldn't be afraid of a woman."

Kate stops, her finger on the call button for the elevator, turns to look at him. "Castle." You wouldn't be afraid of a woman, he said. A woman.

He's got his phone out, his thumb rubbing over it. "You've been warned about Jerry Tyson, but not a woman. Kate. I need. I should call my daughter. I need to call-"

"Call her on the way, Castle." She tugs him into the elevator after her, watching as he speed dials his daughter. Her heart is pounding. You wouldn't be afraid of a woman.

"If she doesn't answer-"

Kate finally looks at him, clicks over to his wave length, figures it out. "If she doesn't answer we go straight to your apartment. Sirens on," she promises. Alexis might let in a woman; Alexis wouldn't be afraid of a woman.

He nods, his throat working to swallow. He holds the phone up to his ear.

She reaches out and captures his free hand, squeezes it, steps in close. "She's fine."


	9. Chapter 9

"Try again, Castle."

"I am trying," he snaps, pressing his phone to his ear. She's silent; he sighs. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. We'll be there in five minutes."

The phone rings and rings. It's three in the morning. Almost three-thirty now. Alexis doesn't turn her cell phone off, but she often leaves it in her bag downstairs, or in the hallway outside her room with all the stuff she needs to take to school the next day. It could be that her phone is out of her hearing. Or sometimes she goes to bed listening to her iPod and falls asleep before she can take her earbuds out. It could be a really long playlist.

His mother has already answered her phone; Martha isn't at the loft tonight. She was a little coy at first, but when she heard the seriousness in his voice, she confessed that she was at a friend's place. Spending the night. An old friend from the theatre. "Someone you know, darling." She wouldn't say who. She's safe though; she promises not to open the door for anyone she doesn't know.

But Alexis is home alone. Not answering her phone.

"I should've stayed at home."

"Uniforms said no one has come in or out since you left, Castle." She reaches over the center console, brushes her hand down his arm, leaving her eyes on the road as she squeezes his forearm.

"I know." He laces his fingers through hers, some small comfort. The phone against his ear still rings, goes to voicemail. He tries again.

"They've got you leaving the building at two forty this morning."

"Yeah."

"No one else came through."

"Can you call them again?" He wants to be sure. He just wants to be sure.

She takes her hand away from his and pulls her phone from the cupholder, presses send to redial the last call. He can't look at her, can't think of things. If he starts thinking, then he starts imagining. He starts coming up with worst case scenarios. He doesn't need that right now. Curse of the writer.

Voicemail._ I could really use a silver lining here._

He presses send again. Kate chats with the uniforms outside his apartment. They seem to be agreeable with heading into the lobby and speaking with the doorman on duty. His building doesn't have a night security guard in the lobby, but Castle is beginning to think it should. He'll bring it up at the next association meeting.

It just rings. Voicemail. He presses send again.

Kate hangs up, glances at him. "Castle."

"Yeah."

"I need you to hang up."

"She might hear it-"

"If she hasn't heard it by now, she won't hear it. If she hears it and can't get to it, you might be. . .you might be making someone nervous."

He ends the call, fingers shaking. He has to put his head between his knees, gulping down his breath.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Drive faster."

"I am," she assures him. He's not assured. He's not going to be able to do this if- "Oh God." His stomach lurches. "Kate-"

"No. We're two blocks away, Castle. Alexis is asleep. You're going to feel foolish in the morning. She's going to ask you why you called her phone fifteen times, so be thinking of excuses so you don't scare her tomorrow."

He takes a deep breath, his brain clicking over to excuses. Excuses for calling at three a.m. He couldn't find his mother? He wanted to know if she, if she. . .what can he possibly use as an excuse for calling fifteen times at three o'clock in the morning? Nothing is that urgent. Well. Maybe this?- he wanted to know if she would mind if Kate spent the night.

That works.

"We're here. Out, out."

He jerks, fumbling at his seat belt, glances out the window at his building. Kate has parked illegally at the front doors; she's already out and headed for the lobby and the two cops inside chatting with his doorman. Castle finally manages to get his numb fingers to work and falls out of the car, slams the door, trips into his apartment building.

Kate's pushing the call button for the elevator, her hand on the butt of her gun, the holster unbuttoned. He moves to stand beside her, but she pushes him back. One of the uniformed officers stands at her right instead, the other stays with the door man in the lobby. Kate and the officer with her both draw their weapons as the floor indicator lights up.

Castle holds his phone in his hand like a lifeline, pressed against his heart. The elevator opens. Kate clears it and gestures him inside, then elbows him to the front corner of the car, making him a small, almost nonexistent target.

Castle's hands are tingling. He pockets his phone just in case he drops it, then remembers to switch it to vibrate, pockets it again. His whole body is jittery. He just wants to be there already.

The doors open on his floor. Kate is the first one out, clearing the hallway, the officer right behind her. She hasn't said a word to him since she ordered him out of her car, but he knows she wants him to stay back. He wants to rush into his apartment and run upstairs to his daughter's room _right now_, but he waits, trembling.

Kate gestures to him with a nod of her head, and Castle strides forward behind her, the uniformed officer behind him (he really needs to get the man's name after this is done). He fingers his keys, pulls them out as quietly as possible. Kate takes them, inserts his key slowly into the lock, turns the tumblers. She waits a beat but all is silent.

She nods to him to get back, and he does, shuffling to the side. On Kate's nod of 1, 2, 3, the cop pops open the door and they glide inside, quick, clearing the visible rooms. He waits, fists clenched, head leaned against the wall, taking in deep breaths, trying not to imagine anything. He's got a mantra going in his head that's boiled down to one word:

_Please_.

He hears Kate's soft voice. "Clear." Castle rushes inside, finds Kate at the base of the stairs with the officer turned towards the open door, both of them with weapons at the ready.

"Castle," she says gently, barely a sound at all.

He steps in behind her, and the three of them head up the stairs. She gives him a jerk of her head, and he points towards his daughter's door. The officer and the detective clear all the other rooms, leaving hers for last.

Castle's palms are damp; his heart is in his throat and pounding. He can't breathe.

_Please._

The door clicks open and light from the hallway slides inside.

Alexis stirs, flops over in her bed. Alone.

Castle drops to his knees, hands braced on the floor, head down, taking gulps of air, relief pulsing through him in great waves. He hears Kate close the door, her hushed comments to the police officer. They both leave him for a moment, and he puts his head to the floor, eyes closed, thanking someone, something, some force greater than himself who happens to be looking out for his innocent baby girl.

She has her iPod on, earbuds in her ears. Her phone is probably on her dresser or desk, or buried in her purse; she'd never hear him calling. Alexis. Oh God, she's fine; everything's fine.

He lifts his head, sits back on his heels, tries to find the energy to stand up again. His palms lay open on his thighs, worthless.

A rustle of movement and then Kate's at his back, a hand at his shoulder, crouching down beside him. "Castle."

He nods; he can't speak. He just has to hold this way for a moment, let it wash over him until he can handle it again.

She's on her knees beside him; she slides her hand over his and threads their fingers together. "She's asleep."

He nods again, swallows hard.

"She's okay; she's just asleep," Kate repeats, squeezes his hand, and then stands up.

He follows her up blindly, knees like jelly, and turns to the stairs. "I'll leave her a note. Not to open the door. To anyone."

She makes a soothing noise in her throat that actually does help, somehow. He pauses at the top of the stairs and turns to Kate and wraps her in a hug, squeezing too hard but unable to help himself.

"I know," she says softly. "I know. It's okay."

He takes in one of those breaths that sounds like he's been crying, but he hasn't. He wants to though. He wants to hide in his room and sob a little bit, a lot, until this hollow feeling leaves him.

"All right, Castle." She pats his back and then pushes on him a little. "Lanie's meeting us at the morgue, remember?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbles into her hair, not sure what he's apologizing for, not yet able to let go.

"Nothing to be sorry for. I was worried too."

Why is that such a relief, why does that sound so amazing to hear? It fills him with love, floods him to the brim and overflows. He's got to hug her a little tighter for that, cradle the back of her neck with his palm, pressing her against him.

"Thank you," he finally says, and manages, somehow, to let her go.


	10. Chapter 10

Kate will have to go to the morgue alone.

When it comes down to it, Castle can't leave his daughter, and Kate completely understands. She tasks him with forwarding her all the photos he took of the Roma Haskins crime scene, and then she gets back on the elevator with Officer Hunt, the two of them riding down in silence.

In the lobby of Castle's building, she goes over it again with Hunt and Ross, the two officers assigned to Castle's protective duty. "No one goes in this building without ID, double checked by the door man. If his relief is someone new on the job, he stays, you stay, then you call me. If his relief is someone he doesn't know, you call me. If someone has a complaint, you tell them to call the mayor."

"The mayor?" Hunt asks, raising his eyebrows.

"The mayor." Kate affirms, staring him down to get the seriousness across. "We have a serial killer on the loose who has already decided he doesn't like Richard Castle. You know Tyson; you all got his photo?" At their nods, she continues. "He works with a partner. We think it might be a woman, but it could be anyone. No one, and I mean no one, goes in this building who doesn't belong here; I don't care who they know or how much they make. No service men. No maintenance workers. We've already contacted the building's manager; he's filled in on this, so he won't be sending workers."

"Got it, boss," Hunt says, nodding at her. "We're in the lobby until further notice then. Any other entrances?"

"This is the only one. There's a fire exit at the stairs, but it's locked from the inside. Every hour, one of you goes to the exit, checks to make sure it's still closed and locked."

"Yes, ma'am," Ross says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You got relief for us?"

"It's going to be Collins and Stanton."

"Detective Stanton is going to baby-sit?"

Kate winces. "Yeah. He's going to have to. They're your relief. No one else; no exceptions. This guy, you know he has a detective's badge and gun, right?"

"Yes, ma'am." They both nod.

"Something doesn't feel right; you call me. Someone says I said do something; you call me."

"We call you. Got it, boss."

She nods, lets her face soften just a little. "Thank you. This guy. . .he tricked us last time, made us look like fools. I don't want that happening again."

As she turns away, she sees them both stand a little straighter, a little stiffer. It does make her feel a little easier, leaving Castle to their care after her little speech. She doesn't even care if they spend the rest of the night talking about how much of a fool she is for Castle, so long as they guard the door.

Kate walks out of the building, gets in her car, and heads to the morgue alone.

* * *

><p>Lanie is waiting for her, looking exhausted, dressed in a pair of work scrubs. Kate gives her a quick hug, sighing, and waves off the unasked question regarding Castle's whereabouts.<p>

"Sorry to wake you again. I need to see Donna Gallagher's body."

"Yeah, what are you looking for?" Lanie leads her through the dimly lit office, pulls out her keys to unlock the double doors leading to the autopsy suites. Once down that hall, their steps sound strange as they echo off the ceiling tiles and concrete blocks.

"Castle noticed lipstick stains on one of the cups in the kitchen. Need to see if Gallagher was wearing lipstick."

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

Kate stops mid-stride, looking at her friend. "Are you serious?"

"Donna was wearing lipstick. I don't usually put that kind of thing in the report though."

Kate's heart drops. "What color?"

"Pinkish."

"Not coral?" She raises an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't call it that." Lanie tilts her head, pulls out her keys. "But let's go look."

"That's not something you'd include in the report?"

"Well, it depends, Kate. Sometimes, yeah, if it's a sexual crime, if there's a point to looking. I happened to notice on Donna because her lips were chapped, flaking, and the color, whew not a good color on her. Pale."

Pale pink might be Kate's coral; it's hard to know. She follows Lanie down the hall, stopping to let her unlock the cold storage.

Lanie flicks on the overhead light and picks up the catalog hanging by a string next to the door.

"Still not computerized?"

"Honey, you've seen the old guys that work here. We got some real sticks-in-the-mud. Ain't no way we're gonna get this digital." She flips through the book, finds the name and correct slot, and reads off the number. "Drawer 2118."

Kate locates the drawer and thumbs off the lock that keeps it from accidentally popping open. She remembers Lanie complaining about the drawers not catching all the way, walking in to find the bodies decomping, the terrible smell. Kate tugs harder and the drawer slides open.

Lanie has already pulled on gloves, hands some over to Kate. She produces a Q-tip looking thing, swipes it across the woman's lips while Kate peers closely, trying to determine the color.

They both look at the swab.

"No color," Lanie says. "But it's glossy."

"Not lipstick. Chapstick." Kate glances up to look at her friend. "She's wearing chapstick. The coral lipstick on the cup-"

"Was someone else." Lanie straightens up, glances at the swab in her hand. "I'll evidence this. You need to sign off on it."

"Yeah, yeah, let me call-"

"Kate, get me an evidence bag."

She follows Lanie's finger and grabs a box of clear bags from the table near the door. She opens one up, much like a ziploc bag, and turns it inside out, her hand covered. She takes the swab from Lanie, peels the bag down around it, closes it up. "You got evidence tape in here?"

"Bottom drawer."

Kate pulls out the evidence tape, seals the top, and signs the seal. She hands it to Lanie who makes her mark as the ME, then watches her friend add it to the small pile of evidence in the space at the foot of the drawer, all of it in something like a clear garbage bag.

"So classy," Kate murmurs, grinning at Lanie.

"We might be dinosaurs down here, but we get the job done." Lanie pulls of her gloves, takes Kate's from her, and dumps them in the biohazard bin. "Now you can make your calls. I'll revise the report and email it to you."

"Thanks, Lanie. Have you gotten anything back on the fibers?"

"Not yet. Like I said, it's gonna be weeks. Even with a second murder, we still have a wait."

Kate chews on the inside of her lip, phone in hand. "What about sending it out?"

"Federal? Or were you thinking private?"

"We use private labs, don't we?"

Lanie nods slowly. "We do, but. . .judges don't always look kindly on private labs. Means there's money behind it."

"But with this, the possibility of a serial killer back in the city. . ."

"I'll look into it, Kate. But you know testing destroys the sample. I found a couple of fibers on Donna, but only one on Roma Haskins. That will be it."

"One shot you mean."

"One shot." Lanie closes the drawer, leads her back out of the cold storage room. She pulls out her keys to lock it again.

Kate takes a deep breath. "Let me call the Captain. I'll have to get approval for it. But if we can, I want to send the samples off. I need to get this confirmed, or else I can't request more manpower."

"That have something to do with Castle not being here? You said on the phone he was gonna be with you."

Kate digs the heel of her hand into her forehead, weariness swamping her. "Yeah. When we realized Tyson's partner could be a woman, he freaked a little."

"Castle? Freaked?" Lanie said, amused.

"He couldn't get ahold of his daughter."

"Oh." The amusement has faded from her face.

"Yeah. She's fine though. We went to the apartment; Alexis was asleep of course. Headphones on, so she didn't hear her phone."

"Wow. That must've been intense. So Castle stayed home."

"Castle stayed home."

Just as she says this, her phone rings, startlingly loud in the empty hallway. She glances at the display.

"It's Castle." She answers, pressing the phone to her ear, her heart pounding. "Castle?"

"I think I found her. I think I know who she is."


	11. Chapter 11

He's printed the images out and arranged them on the dining room table in roughly the same order he took them. Kate has come back to his apartment with the news that their victim, Donna Gallagher, was not wearing coral lipstick. The second person in that apartment was a woman.

"Look, here's the alley. There's Detective Stanton talking to Ryan." Castle taps the photos as he points to them. "I couldn't blow them up much because they're already poor quality, but it's enough to see faces."

"What did you find, Castle?"

"Well, I want to see if you notice it first. Just look at the photos."

Kate sits down at the table and starts at the top. These are the photos from his cell phone, the images canted as he tried to hold the phone unobtrusively at his side. A blurry one that's probably his fingers. A series of photos featuring the alley, the two buildings, the technicians clustered around taking samples.

Rick watches her study the photographs, methodically and slowly. She spends the most time on the shots of the crowd just past the crime scene tape. Only a handful of spectators, really. Mostly people who were entering or leaving the bar and stopped to gawk. Castle has at least twenty photos, taken over a thirty minute time period as they walked the scene.

He lets his eyes track hers, seeing again what she must see. A man in dark sunglasses, in the middle of the night. Kate puts that one to the side. Groups of women, groups of men and women, business attire, casual clothes, clubbing clothes, college kids, a scattering of individuals.

At first glance, he can tell that she doesn't see what he sees. But she goes back over them, faster, touching the tip of her finger to each photo as she does. Then Kate's finger pauses, slides back to the photo that first snagged his attention.

"Oh."

Castle sits down beside her. "Yeah. Uh-huh, you see it too?"

"I thought she was with them." Kate pulls out a photo near the beginning, points to the woman half-hidden behind the group. She uses her finger to slide out the photo she's got marked, featuring the same woman. "Same clothes. Jeans. About their age. But here she is again."

"Much later. I think ten minutes. She came back to the scene."

He watches Kate studies the face; Castle only managed to get a profile. "Brown hair. Not blonde."

"His victims are blonde. Doesn't mean his partner has to be." He sits back in his chair, taking a deep breath, suddenly feeling exhausted.

Kate is tracing her finger around the face. "She's tall. Jeans. Tank top maybe?"

Castle gathers his attention and leans forward. "Yeah, look at this one. You can see part of her arm; her hands are on her hips." Castle pulls out a third photo from further down the row. "About two minutes after the second sighting. She's pretending to be part of this group now."

"Good eye, Castle."

His stomach flips. "You think it's her?"

She chews on her bottom lip, holds the photo up a little closer to her face. "We'll call her a person of interest. I'll send out this photo to the guys watching your place and Ryan's, just in case."

Now that she's picked out the same anomaly he has, he's got to tell her the rest of it. "Kate."

She glances up; she seems to sense the chill across his heart because she looks concerned. "Castle?"

He brushes his fingers across the table. "I know her. I think. I mean, I think I know her."

Kate looks disbelieving. "What are you-where do you know her from?"

Castle sighs, holds the photos in both hands as he studies it. "I don't know. I feel like I see her every day. But I have no idea where, or how. Just something about this angle right here, the way her head is tilted as if she's listening to someone."

Kate glances at the photo he holds; it's one of the least helpful, completely blurred along the lines of the woman's face. He can tell by the hesitation in her voice that she doesn't believe him. "Castle. Maybe. . .maybe you think you know her. Or maybe you've just been staring at these pictures for too long."

But it wasn't staring at the pictures that pointed her out to him. It was this one photo, the angle of her head, the brown hair over her shoulder. Young. Well, the same age as Kate. She reminds him of someone, she is someone he knows. Or. . .or Kate's right. He's been looking at these pictures for too long. "Yeah, maybe."

"How could you know her?" Kate takes the photo from him, stacks the three of the woman together.

He rubs at his eyes. "I don't know. I'm feeling paranoid. A lot paranoid. And I've got to explain to my daughter why I called her 15 times in the middle of the night. Day. It's day now."

He sees Kate glances at her watch. "Definitely day. I should go; let you get some sleep."

Missing in that statement is any notion that she herself might get some sleep as well. He frowns at her, noting the deep circles under her eyes. How long has it been since she got a full night's sleep? "Are you going to get some sleep, too, Detective?"

When she looks at him, he gets the feeling that she might not answer seriously. "I'm gonna go back to my apartment and try, Castle."

Something about the honesty in her eyes makes him hurt. "Do you have a protective detail?"

"No." He doesn't like the look of stubbornness that washes across her face.

"I think that's a mistake." Castle stacks up the photos, still in order, then lays his hand over hers on the table. "I think you need someone watching out for you."

She slips her hand out from under his. "Castle, I don't think I'm all that important to Tyson."

"But you're important to me." And that's the problem, isn't it? He can see it on her face.

She stands up, gathering her things to leave.

Desperation rises up in him like bile. He swallows. "Kate."

"Good night, Castle."

He stands up as well, tries to figure out a way to say the right things. "Kate. I meant. I mean surely he knows you're important to me. That he could get to me through you."

She stops in the middle of the living room. When she turns her head, she looks disappointed. "You need to get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

That's not good enough. He wants to go with her, to check her closets and under her bed and sleep on the couch in her living room, just to be sure. But Alexis. . .

"Kate." He rushes to catch up with her, snags her elbow just as she gets to the foyer. "Kate, please. I can't be in two places at once."

"No one's asking you to." She frowns at him. "What are you even talking about, Castle?"

"If you go home, I'll wonder. I won't sleep, worrying about you." He cradles her elbows in his palms, tries to step a little closer even as she steps away. Back where they started.

She smiles at him, one of those gentle, humor-him smiles. "That's ridiculous. Look, I'll call you when I get home. You'll know I'm fine."

He knows that's a concession she wouldn't have made just a few days ago, promising to call him. But he shakes his head, takes a bolder step into her space. "Not good enough. What about all the hours after that?"

Kate rolls her eyes. "I'm not the civilian here, Castle. I'll be fine. You get some sleep; I'm sure you can handle a couple hours."

He can't. He really can't. He'll spend all night dressed and ready to go, to spring to her defense, hating himself for not being there, mired in guilt for hating himself, for wanting to be there when his place is here with his daughter. "Kate. Please. Don't make me choose." Because he won't choose her, no matter how much he loves her, how much he needs her, he won't choose Kate over his own daughter.

He can tell she's confused; she doesn't get it. And then her eyes widen and she's trying to back away from him, but he won't let go. He can't let go. After a second, she shifts direction and steps in closer, her eyes dark and unreadable.

"Castle. There's no choice. Stay with Alexis." She presses her palm against his chest; he's sure she can fee how wild his heartbeat is. She strokes her fingers over his shirt. "I'd never ask you to choose."

"Then stay," he says roughly, grabbing her hand and pressing it against his chest. "Stay with me. Don't go home, alone, without protection, and make me hate myself all night. Stay here where I can see you."

"Where you can see me?" she queries, raising an eyebrow.

He blushes, (how long since the last time a woman has made him blush?) and stumbles back a step. "I mean. Not like that, Kate. I wasn't implying in bed with me. Just in a bed I can get to."

She laughs. He groans and rubs a hand across his eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that either. I mean. Just, if you're here, I can make sure you're still. . .here." He takes a shaky breath and wonders if it's all right if he kisses her. He needs to kiss her.

She tilts her head; her fingers curl on his chest. "All right Castle. I'll stay in your guest room. And you can come sneak in during the middle of the night and check to make sure I'm still breathing."

He sighs, the tension drains from his body. "Yes. Thank you. Yes, that's-" Castle straightens up as the meaning hits him, frowns at her. "No. I mean, I won't do that. I won't sneak in on you."

She pats his shoulder. "Sure you won't. Now, point me in the direction of some towels. I need a shower before I get a few hours' sleep."

Instead of leading her to the linen closet, he's got to do one thing first. Castle snares her head with a hand and leans in to press his mouth against hers. She opens up to him, unfolding beauty, her tongue hot and clever against his. He presses her body against his hips, holding her too tight, but she's liquid silver in his arms, molten and hard to keep. She pours over his hands, pulls away with a soft huff of breath.

She rubs her thumb along his lips in apology. "Towels, Castle. Then sleep."


	12. Chapter 12

Castle takes a shower as well, unfortunately in his own bathroom, while Kate uses the guest bath upstairs. He can still feel the soft skin of her thumb against his lips. He washes quickly so he won't use all her hot water, then pulls on shorts and a tshirt, both clean. He pads out into the living room in bare feet, pours himself a glass of water to have something to do, then waits.

He hears her shower cut off, the curtain draw aside. He has to wrap both hands around the glass; his wet hair lays in spikes across his forehead and trickles water down his cheek. He swipes at it, hears the bathroom door open. He stands up, then pauses.

What if she's just in her towel? Uh. . .well then, all the better, right?

Castle heads for the stairs, backtracks to put his water glass down, then starts up again. He can smell the humid heat of the shower, the scent of Alexis's soap in the air. That's interesting. He knows it's Kate, but the smell seems to be tricking him. Probably a good thing.

He rounds the corner and sees her at the threshold, about to close the door to the guest room. In her towel. She gives him a look, as if saying _Is it all you hoped for? _and steps back into the hall. All rational thought has left his brain. What was he even coming upstairs for in the first place?

"Can I borrow a tshirt, Castle?"

"Of course." But he doesn't move. He wants. . .oh, so much. He sighs. "I'll go get one."

He turns to head back downstairs, surprised when she follows him. He can feel her at his back, wet and warm, and even with his daughter's soap on her skin, he wants her.

When he walks down the back hall, past his study, she follows. When he opens his door and steps inside his room, she follows. When he opens up his bottom drawer and grabs the first shirt he finds, she's right at his side.

He hands it to her and she takes it, looking at him, meeting his gaze. He won't drop his eyes; he will keep his eyes on her face. He will. He will.

"Thanks."

She smiles at him (oh God, that smile), steps a little closer. He can't breathe. She unfurls his shirt, lifts her arms, and damn, the towel stays on. She drops the shirt over her head, pulls her arms through, wriggling a little, making him flush. With the shirt in place, she does some trick and the towel drops. She steps out of it, wearing nothing but his tshirt.

Which says _Thar She Blows! _with the design of a whale wrapped around the torso and a tiny ship on the pocket. Castle laughs and leans back against his dresser, suddenly able to breathe again. He looks at her face, laughs harder.

He gestures to the shirt. "Concert tshirt. Sorry. Wasn't paying attention. I might have picked something more. . .or less. . .appropriate."

Kate glances down at the shirt, her lips spreading into a rich smile, brilliant in the relative darkness of his room. When she looks back at him, something has altered in her face. He can't tell what, or if it's in his favor, but she doesn't walk away.

"What concert?"

"Moby. Some years ago. There's a robot piloting the boat." He raises a finger to point, but the pocket of his tshirt is draped quite low; he curls his hand into a fist and clears his throat. "Uh. Looks better on you."

"You'd say that." She grins wider and steps closer. Close enough to feel her heat. He takes a breath, lets it out in a rush.

"Kate," he says, warning her.

"I know," she says softly, steps back. "Maybe later."

She disappears from his room.

Maybe later? Maybe later. Oh thank you, God.

* * *

><p>When her alarm goes off three hours later, it's 7:20 and the shirt has ridden up around her waist. She thinks, somewhere in her dreams, that Castle has been in the room. It's possible he really was, but it doesn't. . .<p>

Hm. She doesn't mind. Even in this shirt. She slides out of bed, grabs her clothes from last night. She's done this enough, gone into work in last night's clothes, that it won't be suspect. She pulls on her jeans, slips on the bra, hooks it. Her shirt smells like her lotion from yesterday, not too bad. Wearable at least.

She runs her fingers through her hair, shakes the sleep out of it. She peers at herself in the mirror, sees the girl for a second, rather than the detective, then turns to the dresser for her gun and badge. The hip holster slides onto her belt; she pulls it across her waist, tucks it under her shirt. Gives it a few draws until she's sure it's secure, in the right place.

Her mother's ring isn't where she left it. Kate picks it up, the chains sliding through her fingers, glances at the door. Pushed closed, when she knows she left it cracked.

Dropping the chain around her head, she heads for the door, grabbing her keys on the way out. Alexis's door is open; Kate can hear the shower going. She steps quietly to the staircase, heads down. From the landing, she can see Castle sleeping on the couch.

She frowns, leaves her keys on the table in the foyer, makes her way to the living room. Castle's got a blanket tangled in his legs, one arm thrown over his head, the other arm hanging off the couch, hand touching the floor. Kate crouches next to him, gently wraps her fingers around his wrist and raises his hand back to his chest. She smooths her palm along his forearm, rubs her thumb on his wristbone.

He wakes with a twitch, his fingers flexing as his eyes jerk open. "Kate?" His voice is gruff with sleep.

"What are you doing out here?" she whispers.

He puts his head back down, rubs his eyes with the hand not under hers. He cracks his jaw yawning, then rolls onto his side. His hand catches her before she can withdraw it. "Felt like I needed to be by the door."

"Castle," she says, shaking her head at him. His eyes are dark and sleepy, vulnerable.

In spite of herself, she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his smudged lips, rubs her thumb over the corner of his mouth. He smiles into her hand. "You leaving?"

"For the station. You following?" She can't help smiling back at him as he lifts up to his elbow.

"As soon as Alexis heads to school." He leans forward, touches his lips to her forehead. "Thank you for indulging me."

"Any-" She breaks off laughing, shakes her head. "I almost said, Any time."

"I wish you had."

"See you in a bit, Castle." She shakes his hands free and stands up, flicks her finger through the flop of hair hanging in his eyes. "You still getting me coffee?"

"Of course. The good stuff." A strange shadow flickers in his eyes, but he shakes his head and puts his feet on the floor. "Want me to see you out?"

"I got it. Just make sure you lock the door behind me."

Kate leaves him on the couch, still half-asleep, and somehow, some way, she wishes she weren't. Leaving him.

* * *

><p>Castle gets up to lock the door behind her, just in case. He's already thinking about coffee. He's been thinking about coffee since sometime last night. Well, really, Kate was the one to bring it up. He'll get the usual, from that place right down the corner from the station where-<p>

Coffee. The coffee girl.

He scrambles back to the door, flips the lock and runs for the elevator. He's missed it. He runs back to his loft, digs his phone out of his jeans pocket, heads back out even as he speed dials Kate.

He checks the bank of elevators, but there's just hers going down and the other one already at the lobby floor. It's only five flights; he can run it before Kate leaves, right? She would probably want to talk with the uniforms on duty; he can make it.

He pounds open the fire door, takes the steps two at a time, still ringing Kate. Maybe she has poor cell reception in the elevator? Sometimes his phone will drop calls in there-

"Castle?"

Breathless, he can barely talk. "Kate."

"Why are you calling?"

He makes it to the landing on the third floor, surprised with his agility. "The coffee-"

"I can wait-"

"No. The girl. In the photos. It's the coffee girl. It's *been* the coffee girl-"

"Wait, Castle. Where are you? It sounds like you're running."

"Second floor, almost there."

"You. . .are running down the stairs?"

"Yep. Manly, right? Please say it is; I'm about to croak."

She laughs in his ear. "I'll wait for you to catch your breath before we finish this conversation. I'm in the lobby."

He takes the last two steps in a jump, feels a twinge in his ankle that he really should listen to, and knocks into the stair door. He rebounds right off, cursing, his wrist throbbing, shoulder bruised, still in the stairwell.

"Son of a. . ." He growls and attacks the door a little more carefully, making sure he uses the pushbar this time. When he stumbles into the lobby, Kate is with the two uniformed officers waiting on him.

"What did you do?" she asks, rolling her eyes at him as he shakes out his hand.

"It hit me."

"Looks like," she smirks.

"No, when you left. The coffee."

"Right, the coffee girl?"

"In the photos. It's her. I see her every day, Kate, getting coffee. Or well, almost every day. Every day that I come to the precinct, I mean-"

"Can it, Castle. What coffee girl?"

"I don't know her name. She flirts with me-"

"You mean, you flirt with her."

He opens his mouth, closes it, sighs in relief when he sees the smirk on her face. "You scared the crap out of me just now."

"You think I was kidding? I know you, Castle. Now go on. The coffee girl."

He realizes, in that instant, that he is wearing boxers and a tshirt in the lobby of his own apartment building, that the two officers are looking back and forth from him to Kate, and that his door man is also watching. Also, his wrist is shooting sharp pains up his forearm, and his ankle is throbbing.

"Uh, you've got the photos, right?" he says, edging towards a pillar, hoping there aren't any random photographers. Sometimes there are.

"Yeah. Right here." She pulls them out of the back pocket of her jeans. "Hey guys, Hunt, Ross. I was going to show you these as well."

The two officers come closer, looking like they've been invited to the show, and Kate hands them the three photos of the brunette woman. Castle glances over the shoulder of one, tapping his finger on it.

"Yeah, that's her. That's the girl from the coffee shop. She does that head tilt when she's listening-"

"Listening to you?"

Castle glances up at her. "Why, Detective Beckett, are you-"

Ross interrupts. "Ma'am. Detective Beckett. We've seen her. We've seen this woman."


	13. Chapter 13

"Go get your pants on!" She snaps at him one last time and turns back to the officers.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Castle finally follow directions, and she waits while Ross calls for a team. They have the address of the coffee shop from Castle; they won't waste time with this.

"When did you see her? Pinpoint the timeline." She taps a foot impatiently on the floor and has to take a breath, maker herself slow down.

Ross gets off the mike and takes the photo from her fingers, studying it. "Maybe two, three hours ago. Coffee in hand. A tray of it. Bag of pastries. Doorman nods to her, says he knows her. She gets on the elevator. Goes to four. Leaves maybe twenty minutes later. No coffee."

Goes to four. Castle is five. A quick walk up the stairs? She doesn't remember seeing signs that the lock to his door was tampered with, but she wasn't specifically looking for it.

"Where's the doorman?"

"It's Robert. He's outside." Hunt takes one of the other photos and squints at it. "You know, I'm not certain about this."

"Doesn't matter. Get Robert."

The doorman comes back inside at Ross's prompting, approaches Kate. She can tell he's nervous; is it for perceived sins or for some real mistake on his part?

"Robert. I'm Detective Beckett."

"Yes ma'am, I know you."

Right. Castle. "Do you remember seeing this woman earlier?" She hands him the third photo, the one of the woman's profile, and the best quality.

Robert studies it, hands it back. "Yes ma'am. She came through."

"Why."

"Why what?"

"Does she live here? Does she do regular deliveries? Does she-"

"Oh, yes ma'am. I mean, she doesn't live here. But she's been taking coffee up to the new guy on four. Regular like."

New guy. It can't be that easy, can it?

"New guy. What apartment?" She pushes the photo into her back pocket.

"403 At the back end."

"Hunt, with me. Stairs. Ross, you stay-"

"Got it, boss."

Hunt at her right, they hustle to the stairs, unholstering their weapons. Taking the steps two at a time, they rush through the correct procedures, each landing a little more sloppy. She realizes she's got a choice to make: go straight to 403 and knock on the door, or go straight to Castle's apartment and secure it once again.

Once again. This is too much. Is she jumping at shadows? Has her. . .whatever it is. . .has it made her crazy, skewed her judgment?

On the fourth floor landing, Hunt makes the decision for her, inadvertently, when he pauses by the door, weapon in the two-handed grip, covering her. Yes. This is the right choice. Not Castle first. Castle is fine. She nods to three, flings the door open and Hunt darts forward, Kate covering his back.

Empty floor. 403 is at this end, the back end near the stairs. Probably costs less at the back, worse view. Jerry Tyson can't possibly have afforded to rent this place, not even with the money-

She pulls her badge off her belt and taps on the apartment door. "NYPD! Open up."

They both pull back to either side of the door, as they've been trained, and wait. She can hear movement inside, rustling, the sound of footsteps. Finally the locks flip loudly, the deadbolt sliding back, and the door opens.

The man is in his late forties, scruffy hair, an open robe, boxers. Not Tyson. She holsters her weapon.

"Sir?" she asks. "NYPD. I'm Detective Beckett, this is Hunt. Can we ask you a couple of questions?" She flashes her shield at him and waits.

"Uh. Yeah. Um. James, James Collins." He wraps his robe tighter, winds the belt around his waist. "Want to come in?"

"That's all right. It'll be quick." Kate pulls the photo out of her back pocket. "Do you know this woman?"

He squints, brings the photo up close to his face, then shrugs. "Let me get my glasses." He hands it back, shuffles off to some other part of the apartment. Kate gestures at Hunt to stay back, weapon at his thigh and ready, but Collins comes back with black-framed glasses on his face, like he said.

He takes the photo from her again and then shakes his head. "Nope. Sorry. I don't think I do. But that's a pretty crappy photo. Is this crime scene stuff? Cause, I'm a photographer and I could-"

"No sir. Thank you for your time."

She jerks her head to Hunt and they leave the man at his door, start heading back down the hallway. Hunt holsters his weapon.

"All right back downstairs, Hunt. We'll wait for the team. I want a bomb-unit out here to the building, just in case, while we head to the coffee shop. This woman came up to the fourth floor, spent twenty minutes in the building, and then left without her coffee. I want to know why."

Her phone buzzes, and she pulls it open as they get on the elevator.

"Beckett."

"Kate. Hey. Did you find her?"

She wants to ask him if he's finally dressed or still wasting time. But Hunt is on the elevator with her, and already the two uniformed officers have more gossip fodder than she cares for. "No. She left the building. Are you ready?"

"I've got to get Alexis to school."

"Oh. Right." She hears the disappointment in her own voice and hates it. "Sooner rather than later, Castle. I'm sending a team over to sweep the building."

"Are you-"

"I don't know. I don't know, but she was here. Three hours ago. For some reason."

"We were asleep three hours ago." She can hear Castle opening a door on his end, then he bellows out to Alexis to hurry up. She winces as her ear rings.

Door. Rings. She remembers the door, her mother's ring. She glances over at Hunt, sighs. "Castle. You didn't. . .didn't come in my room last night, did you?"

"What? Of course not!"

Shit. Shi-

She slams her palm against the emergency stop button; the trill of the alarm starts. She presses 5 with the hand gripping the phone, lets go of the stop, and the elevator starts churning upwards. The alarm cuts off. She can hear Castle through the phone, yelling her name.

Hunt is looking at her strangely. She bites her lip. "Some stuff was. . .in the wrong place this morning. She was here for twenty minutes. I just. . ."

"Got it, boss."

"Radio for back-up, will ya?"

He nods. Kate brings the phone back to her ear. "Kate? Kate?"

"Castle."

"What the hell was that?"

"Elevator. I need you to get Alexis dressed and wait for me by the elevators. Just. . .just in case."


	14. Chapter 14

Castle sits on his hands in a squad car while the NYPD's bomb-sniffing dogs go over his apartment building, focusing on his apartment and the floor below. Alexis was driven to school by Detective Stanton, who was pulling protective duty, while Collins sits with Castle in his car.

Kate has gone on to the precinct to interrogate the coffee girl, Claire Farmer, who got picked up at the coffee place moments after they called it in. Castle's hands are shaking so badly that he's actually glad Kate isn't here to see it.

His phone rings. "Mother."

"Morning, darling. You sound strained. You did get ahold of Alexis-"

"I got her. She's fine. Just. . .some action going on here at the apartment. You might want to stay away for the rest of this morning. Maybe. . .stay away for the day, Mother?"

"Are you serious? Richard-"

"Mother. Please. It's. . .important that you lay low."

"What about Alexis?" she answers sharply.

"A detective took her to school this morning. He'll wait there in the office until school's over, escort her home. I'll probably take her to a hotel instead of staying at home."

"What's happened?"

"Just. . .strange people in the building, Mother."

"Richard. This killer, the Triple Killer, you don't think he got in the building? I don't like this."

"Me either." He gives a shaky laugh. "But, no, we don't think he did. Maybe a partner. Not sure at this point. You know. . .it is what it is. Doing the best I can."

"Of course. Well. Richard, call me when you and Alexis are settled."

"I will."

"All right. I'll keep myself busy. I'm off, darling."

Castle ends the call and leans his head back against the seat. He hears the crackle of Mike Collins's radio as the bomb squad slowly clears the building. "When do you think I can get back in there? I need to pack up some stuff for later."

"Should be only thirty minutes or so. If they don't find anything."

If they don't find anything. He nods, rubs both hands over his face, tries to wake up. But it's not a nightmare; it's his life.

He's brought it home with him.

* * *

><p>Esposito watches Detective Beckett pace the observation room with a narrowed eye. He turns to Ryan, jerks his head towards their boss. Kate sees the look pass between them and stops, studying the woman behind the glass.<p>

Claire Farmer is tall, tan, brown-haired, good-looking. She's also self-assured, confident, a little smug even. Kate can't figure out why. Most suspects give off a kind of. . .faint unease as they sit behind the interrogation table. Their eyes dart around, or their palms are sweaty, or they lick their lips. They shift in the seat; they rub at a spot on the table.

They don't look expectant, untroubled. They don't appear at ease. Claire looks like a witness, not a suspect.

Kate chews on her bottom lip. "All right. Me alone. You guys stay here; knock on the window when I give you the signal. I'll come out, hopefully get this going."

"You got it," Esposito says.

Kate heads into the interrogation room, a thick stack of files in hand, then sits across from Claire. She pulls open the top file, shuffles through the pages without speaking. She's got Claire's arrest record, and begins filling it in by hand.

Of course, it's all for show; they do this on the computer now, and it's almost never a detective who does this kind of paperwork. But the silence is its own kind of pressure, and soon she feels Claire's attention on her. Kate pretends to collect information from the victims' files, letting Claire get a quick look at morgue photos and ligature marks in file after file. All of Tyson's victims.

After a few strained minutes, Claire's confidence seems to waver. She puts her clasped hands on the table, fingers knotted. She opens her mouth a few times, as if she's going to ask a question, but doesn't.

Kate lifts her eyes to the two-way mirror, and she gets her requested knock from Esposito. She stands up, leaves the file on Donna Gallagher open on the stack, and heads out of the interrogation room.

She joins Esposito at the glass. "Where's Ryan?"

"He's got the surveillance video from the real estate company and the brewery. Going over it with a tech right now."

"Good."

"What are we waiting for?" Esposito says, not taking his eyes off of Claire.

"It's her move," Kate says simply. "Giving her time to see how deep she's in this."

After a few minutes, Claire's tightly clasped hands press flat against the table. She lifts up a little to peer out the door, apparently looking to see if Beckett is coming back. She sits back down heavily, elbows on the table now, looking everywhere but at those files.

Donna Gallagher's face, the rope marks bright red and purple in the photo, taunts Claire from the top of the stack. Kate silently urges the woman to look, to just look, and in a minute, she's rewarded.

Claire tilts her head, glances at the files, hands still flat against the table. Her eyes shoot guiltily to the doorway, then back to the mirror, then to the table again, looking down, not at the files.

"Come on, come on," Kate softly encourages.

She's just too confident. Claire Farmer. Too confident to be a suspect. Something is off.

Claire leans forward on her elbows, staring intently at the closed door of the interrogation room, then takes a quick look at the file. Her face leaches of all color. She raises shaky hands to cover her mouth, grabs the file and turns it around to see the photo.

When she does, she drops back into the chair with a gasp.

"Yeah, we got her," Kate says softly.

Esposito grunts. "What are you talking about? What was that?"

"She didn't know Tyson was going to kill Donna. She let Tyson in; she didn't know."

"Are you kidding me? How you figure that?"

"I'm going back in there." Kate flings open the door, heads to the interrogation room, steps inside with confidence.

Claire glances up, tears swimming in her eyes. "His girlfriend was killed?" Her voice is plaintive, mewling.

Kate frowns. "His girlfriend."

"Oh God. Oh no. He's next. They're going to kill him next." Claire gets to her feet, starts to come around the table. Kate puts a hand on her weapon; Claire stops in her tracks. "Please, you have to let me warn him. If I can. I need to warn him."

"Who?" Kate narrows her eyes.

"Detective Ryan."


	15. Chapter 15

Castle shakes the squad captain's hand and steps through his open doorway into the loft. The teams have all left, finally. The apartment looks. . .the same. Even with bomb-sniffing dogs and police officers having crawled all over the place, it's still his home. He's relieved. On auto-pilot, he closes and locks the door behind him.

Mike Collins is back down in the lobby, the only officer on protective duty right now. Which is fine, because that means Castle's daughter has Detective Stanton protecting at school, and in a few minutes, Castle will be heading to the station anyway. He's going to grab some clothes for him and Alexis, a couple suitcases, and get out of here.

The squad cleared the building in an hour, then went back over his apartment with an eye for anything out of place. The guest bedroom was dusted for prints, but the team found only smudges. The technicians cleaned up after themselves as well, removing all traces. Castle wants to look though, just to be sure.

When Kate met him and Alexis outside his apartment door this morning, she explained that she had noticed her mother's ring was out of place, the door pushed closed. Not how she left things. Castle opens the door now, expecting some kind of sense, some feeling, but it's just his guest bedroom. If there was an intruder before, there's nothing left now.

He doesn't doubt Kate; she's certain. And Alexis promised she hadn't messed with anything either. Fine. But. . .they went to bed at four in the morning. Castle just thinks maybe. . .

But better safe than sorry, right? He sighs in the room and turns away, heading to Alexis's across the hall. He needs to figure out what she might possibly want: jeans, tshirts, and oh crap, underwear. He hasn't been forced to pick out his daughter's underwear since she was in second grade and leaving for summer camp.

Just. . .reach in and pull something out. That should work. He tugs her suitcase out from under her bed, unzips it. Top drawer of her dresser slides out with a squeak, as if protesting. Castle doesn't look, just dips his hand down, snags a few things, hopes it's good enough. If not, he'll take her shopping tonight.

He drops the handful in the suitcase, then shuts the drawer. Whew. Over with. Now for jeans, tshirts, the rest of it. Castle finds a pair of jeans he knows she's worn recently, folds those into the suitcase. A couple tshirts from her closet. A pullover. What else? Oh, right, bathroom stuff.

This could be worse. He heads into the guest bathroom that Alexis has taken over. All kinds of products. Crap. He wonders if he should text her? No, if she's got her phone on her, she could get in trouble with her teachers. If she doesn't have it on her, if it's in her locker like it's supposed to be, she wouldn't get the text in time anyway.

All right, Castle's got to do some detective work. He pushes back the shower curtain, touches the bottles. The ones that are wet, he pulls off the shelves and caddy, checks to be sure he's got some soaps, conditioners, and shampoos. Her razor. Some kind of face cream. Yeah, she probably uses that too.

What else? He's stuck. He does find a compartment bag under her sink to put it all in, shoves things into lined pockets. He goes back into her room and dumps that into the suitcase. Castle knows he's forgetting something, but what?

He stands in the middle of her room and closes his eyes. Be a writer. Alexis is your character. A teen-aged girl, worried about her appearance, has to go to school tomorrow-

School uniform for tomorrow. All right. He grabs a pair of navy pants that are hanging in the closet (Castle just can't bear to think of her wearing her uniform skirt tomorrow with Tyson still out there). One of the white monogrammed shirts. Another pair of socks. What shoes was she wearing this morning?

He grabs her scuffed mary-janes just in case. Then adds a pair of flip-flops to the pile in her suitcase. What else? School clothes. Casual clothes. Oh, right, pajamas. He hunts around in her bedding until he pulls out the shorts and top he saw her wearing last night, adds that to the suitcase.

Fine. Teen-aged girl, clothes for tomorrow. She's dressed for school, she does her hair-

Right. Brush and blow dryer and all that. He goes back to the bathroom and hunts around in drawers until he finds what looks to be like the stuff she uses. Deodorant. And make-up. To be on the safe side, he grabs another zippered bag from under the sink and dumps everything from the basket of make-up into the bag.

That should be good, right? Whatever else she needs, they can buy. Tweezers or hair gel or whatever he's forgotten can be easily replaced. Fine. Castle wants to get moving, get back to the station.

He zips up her suitcase, carries it downstairs, puts it by the front door. He checks his pants pocket for his phone, making sure it hasn't fallen out.

When raises up, he realizes he didn't lock the door, so he flips the deadbolt. Too many people coming in and out. He pushes back the hair from his eyes, makes a mental note to get a haircut soon. When this is over.

Castle pulls his own suitcase out of the hall closet, takes it with him down the hall, heading for his own room. He's making a list of things to grab on his way out: laptop, charger for his phone, his ipod, maybe even the gun in his safe. Maybe. Not sure about that. He's a good shot, accurate enough, and he has a license, but he really would rather it be Kate who's armed.

He opens his bedroom door, feels the change in air pressure or sees some movement on the edge of his vision as the door swings. Perhaps it's just that supernatural awareness he didn't feel in the guest bedroom.

Whatever it is, it alerts him only a half of a second before he feels the double-pronged pinch against his chest. And then the teeth-clenching, jaw-shattering jolt of electricity wraps around him, crisps his nerve-endings, blackens his vision.

Castle falls.

* * *

><p>Standing over Claire Farmer, Kate Beckett pushes the woman back down into the chair by the shoulder. "This is Donna Gallagher. Her boyfriend, Jerry Tyson, strangled her to death. She was a loose end, Claire. She had to be. . .cut."<p>

"No," Claire still insists, shaking her head and not looking at the photo that Kate has shoved under her nose. "No, her boyfriend is Detective Ryan. I've met him. He's a cop."

Kate slides a file folder over to their side of the table, still looming over the young woman, opening the case report on Roma Haskins. "This is Roma Haskins. Jerry Tyson killed her too. Left her in the street."

"I don't know who you're talking about. Is he one of the mob's hit men? Detective Ryan told me it's a mob hit. I met him there, at her. . .at her crime scene."

Kate's head comes up, glances involuntarily to the mirror, eyebrow raised. She leaves Claire at the table, dashes out of the room and collides with Esposito in the hallway. He catches her, nodding.

"Already on it. I texted Ryan to start looking through the surveillance tape during the time we were there. Back up her story."

"Great minds," she grins, a little breathless. She can feel this case breaking wide open under her fingers. "What do you think about her Detective Ryan story? What is that?"

"Tyson has Ryan's shield and gun. What do you think?"

Kate gapes at him. "That. . .right. You're right. Okay." She turns back around, opens the door to the interrogation room. She can't believe she didn't connect that at first. Must be her worry over Castle making her stupid.

Claire has a hand over the photograph of Haskins, as if covering up the woman's sprawled, dead body. She meets Kate's eyes.

"He told me not to tell anyone, but. . .but you're a good guy, right? One of the good cops?" Claire looks at Kate in anxious, earnest appeal. "He said there were a lot of cops on the mob's payroll. That's why he trusted me, because I'm not a cop. But I can trust you. Right?"

She takes a deep breath. Kate gives her a long look. "This has nothing to do with the mob, Claire. You need to tell me the whole story."

Claire licks her bottom lip and Kate notices remnants of coral lipstick, feels the case practically solving itself as she sits there.

"Detective Ryan is undercover. I *have* to leave here so I can get in touch with him. He needs to know they've killed his girlfriend."

Kate sits down at the table, studying Claire silently. The girl gets agitated rather than fidgety, which makes Kate think Claire believes she's right. She thinks she's got nothing to do with this. She thinks this is all some kind of mafia thing.

"Claire." Kate starts softly, pulls the bottom file out from under the stack. Jerry Tyson's criminal record. She opens it slowly, still looking at the woman. "Claire, who is this?"

She slides across the mug shot of Jerry Tyson from his drug incarceration in Sing-Sing almost two years ago.

Claire's hands tremble as she touches the photograph. "I don't. . .I don't understand."

"Detective Ryan is right down the hall, looking over surveillance tape from the crime scene." Kate taps the photo of Haskin's body, still partially covered by Claire's arm. "Detective Ryan's fiance is at her job; she's a really nice woman, teaches kids." Kate waits a beat for that to sink in. "This man. This man here?" She puts a finger on the mug shot. "This is Jerry Tyson, a serial killer who's strangled ten women so far."

"No. No, no, no," Claire whispers, shaking her head. Her eyes blur with tears. "No. This is. . .this is some kind of. . .you're one of them, aren't you?" She hisses, her head raising to give Kate a terrible glare, trying to protect the last of her innocence.

"I met Jerry Tyson eight months ago, when we were chasing after the Triple Killer. Tyson had us fooled too, Claire. He made us believe his partner did it."

"His partner. . ." Her eyes go desolate.

"Another convicted prisoner who had just gotten out. The two of them together. . .they fooled us. Just like Tyson fooled you, Claire. He's not an undercover cop."

"No. No. I don't believe you. He showed me his badge!"

Kate leans back, arms on the table, studies the girl for a long, long moment. Claire wipes at her face, turns her head away, tries to deny it. As the silence stretches on, Claire takes small peeks at the mug shot, the truth sinking in as the silence reigns.

"Oh, God, what have I done? I let him in. I let him in." Claire pushes both hands against her eyes, sobs.

"It's bad, Claire. It is. But you need to tell us everything, all of it, so we can stop him. He's already killed Donna. She's gone. She was a loose end, Claire. She had to be silenced. So he silenced her. What do you think you are, Claire? If he comes back for you, it won't be pretty."

"I let him in," Claire gasps, scrubbing at her face with both hands, her shoulders hunched around her ears. She doesn't look so pretty or confident anymore, and instead of it making Kate feel good for breaking the case, she feels hollow.

Someone else carrying this around now, someone else feeling responsible for another man's terrible crimes. "You let him in because he told you a lie, Claire. He told you he was a cop?"

"Undercover. Working on a mob thing. He said he just wanted to get a chance to see his girlfriend before he had to go deeper undercover. I did. . .I did things for him. Oh God. I told her I needed to call my boyfriend to come pick me up; my cell phone was dead. She went to go get the phone and I just walked out, left the door open for him."

"And then." Kate leans forward, a hard knot in her stomach, the hollowness in her guts filling up with something. . .wrong.

"He passed me in the hall. He looked so. . .happy." Claire's voice strangles on the word. "He was finally getting to see her. He kissed my forehead. I thought-" She shuddered, rubbed two fingers against her forehead. "I thought I was helping him. Oh, God, I *was* helping him. I helped him do all kinds of. . .I let him in."

Claire bursts into desperate tears, sucking in her breath only to sob again. Kate stands up and paces along the mirror, feeling antsy, tense. On edge. She's not sure why. The whole thing feels like the terrible prelude to some more sinister revelation.

Killing Donna Gallagher was just. . .the preview of coming attractions. There's a bigger plan. Claire. Claire has something to do with it.

"Claire, I need you to pull yourself together. In Donna's apartment, did she give you some water?"

"What?" Claire gives her a startled look, her head lifting from her hands. Her face is a mess, blotchy and yellow as she pales under her tan. Kate looks at the ruined make-up, the chewed lips, the startling large eyes. She's got the coral lipstick on right now, because she has no idea.

Kate reminds her. "Water. A glass of water."

"Water. Uh, yeah. I took a sip. I was being polite." Claire's voice cracks.

So she drank from a cup, turned around, and walked out the door, allowing Tyson to take her place inside. And then Tyson left it there. Careful, particular Tyson. The Triple Killer. Left evidence so they would find his partner.

Brutal. Long-suffering. Vindictive. Tyson.

All a set-up. Just like last time. Playing them from the beginning. Orchestrating the evidence, playing the cops, telling them what they wanted to hear, tying up all his loose ends.

So how was Jerry Tyson playing them now?


	16. Chapter 16

When Castle comes around, he feels like shit.

He can't move. Doesn't want to move. Wants to lie here. His finger is twitching, completely without his permission, and every time the muscle contracts, it sends waves of agony along his arm, up into his shoulder, and into his brain.

At least Alexis is at school. Safe. And Kate is at the station. Safe. At least there's that.

Castle opens an eye.

He's still sprawled on the floor of his bedroom. His nose is mashed against the rug. His arms are on fire. He thinks his bladder released when he got jolted by the taser too. Which makes it really, uncomfortably cold. Stupid to dwell on that, out of all the things wrong, but it's unmanly. And somehow, it gives him a measure of the seriousness of this situation.

That taser packed a whole lot more than the advertised 6 watts. Must've been given black-market alterations. His tongue is swollen, probably from biting it. His face is bruised, he can already tell that. Every time his racing heart pumps blood through his body, his head pounds with pain.

He closes his eyes for a second, just to keep the glare of sunlight out of the back reaches of his brain. He needs. . .needs just a moment to gather his wits. He feels like someone has made scrambled eggs of his guts. Yellow and mushy, heavily whisked.

He tries to lick his dry lips, winces at the pain in his mouth, his tongue. He becomes aware of something warm and wet under his left eyebrow, where his head meets the floor. Bleeding then. _I probably fell_. Probably smacked my head pretty good, he thinks.

His arms are killing him. He slowly works his right shoulder, feels a sharp tug against his arm, pain that lances through his bones. His hands are tied, behind his back, burning with pain. The spots on his chest where the leads attached from the projectile taser are raw and aching.

He's in no shape for this. For whatever's coming.

He draws his feet up under him, pants through a wave of rolling pain, eyes closed. He slowly pulls his knees against the hardwood floor of his room, then under his chest against the rug, trying to suppress the noises of agony leaving his sad, sorry body.

He knows what's gonna happen to Rook next in his book. Yeah, there's that. _Silver lining, Kate._ Fodder for the novel.

Castle can't managed to stand though, something wrong with the way his body responds to the signals from his brain. His feet are limp, like dead meat; he can't feel his toes. He realizes they're trussed as well, the rope tugging down from his arms and circling his feet.

_That's why it hurts when I move my legs, Kate_.

Stop moving then.

He obeys. With some relief. Closes his eyes again, his knees drawn up under his chin, giving the rope as much as slack as possible behind his back.

And then he feels the footsteps reverberating down the hallway, pain jolting through him at each step. He opens his eyes to see the booted feet.

"Well, well, finally awake. My modified taser put you out like a tree falling in a forest. Boom! Straight down."

Castle closes his eyes. He doesn't need to look. He knows this voice. It's haunted him.

"Question is, Richard Castle, if a tree falls in a forest, and no one's around to hear it, does it still scream in pain?"

Jerry Tyson steps forward into the room; Castle hears his feet hit the rug, hears the cruelly excited acceleration of Tyson's breathing. He opens his eyes in time to see a boot lift over him.

Tyson brings his heel down, exactly on Castle's tied hands, crunching.

He screams.

* * *

><p>Kate's heart is pounding, her palms are slick with nerves. She doesn't know why; she can't keep her knee from bouncing under the table in the interrogation room.<p>

She rubs her palms on her jeans and leans forward. She knows she looks too eager, but can't get control of herself.

"What else, Claire? What else can you tell us?"

"I don't know," Claire says, not quite sullen, but getting close. Kate's been at this for twenty minutes, picking apart every aspect of Claire's meetings with Tyson. Claire's close to rebelling, having moved from denial and disbelief to defensive anger.

"All right, let's go back to what the police already know about you, Claire." Kate's not sure why she feels the need to press the woman so hard. She's already gotten the number for the burner phone Tyson was using, given that to Esposito to run down. Claire always met Tyson on her breaks from the coffee shop, in the back next to the dumpsters, listening to him while she smoked.

He spun outrageous tales; he seduced her a little with his charm and his lack of playboy moves. He asked her to make drops for him.

"What kind of drops?" Kate asks again. "What did you drop off for him?"

"Just coffee and a bag of pastries. He put messages in them. He paid me fifty bucks at first, when I didn't. . .when I was hesitant. Fifty dollars a day. I just dropped off coffee. And then when he told me about wanting to see his girlfriend, after that woman in the alley died, I just. . .I stopped taking his money. It felt wrong to take money from a cop who-"

"Tyson's not a cop, Claire. He never was. Where did you drop off the coffee?"

"All over, random places. An office, a bar, some apartment building."

Kate's internal irritation stills; she puts a hand flat to the table. "Apartment building. You made regular deliveries of coffee to these places?"

"Yeah. They're his drop spots. He puts information in with the bag of pastries. Maybe you should be looking at those places, too, huh? I mean, it's not just me. It's whoever got those messages. The bar, the office in Soho, the apartment building-"

"The apartment building. You went there. . .how many times a week?"

"A few. A lot. I think another cop must live there. I saw cops in the lobby this morning."

Yes. Exactly. "This morning, you delivered coffee this morning, right?" Kate rattles off Castle's address.

"Yes." Claire has gone back to looking suspicious of Kate, like she still believes this could be some kind of mafia set-up for her Detective Ryan.

"Early this morning," Kate says, a little breathless. She knows, has known from the start, that Claire was the one in Castle's apartment building. But this is the first time Claire has offered that information, has put herself there. It's like the girl is too overwhelmed, too betrayed, to be able to come out with a coherent timeline of events. And Kate's still not sure how much Claire has done. She says she just let Tyson into Donna's apartment, but why did it take so long, why drink a glass of water? Is Claire more of a partner than she's letting on?

She doesn't want to give Claire any extra information that the woman might use to spin a believable story. Kate's had to go slowly because of this. "What time, Claire?"

"Around five this morning. It's just some apartment. I even. . .I mean, I just usually go in and dump the coffee. Detective Ryan's contact inside the police station must check the trash."

"The trash?"

"He tells me to just put it in the trash chute. So that's what I've done. I go up to the 4th floor, dump the coffee, come back down. For a few weeks now. You should be looking at this cop. I bet he's in on this."

"Claire, no cops live there. My friend lives there. The cops are in the lobby to keep him safe. From Jerry Tyson, this man." Kate taps the photo again. "Eight months ago, my friend and I caught Tyson, but he got away. He was pretty angry that we figured it out. So now that he's back, my friend's under police protection."

"I don't know what you're talking about. The detective told me there were mob killings. He said they killed this lawyer like ten years ago. He showed me the clipping from the paper. I looked it up myself. The mob killed her. He was-"

"Stop," Kate says, holding a hand up. Her face is flushed.

Roma Haskins, posed in the alley yesterday night. Posed like her mother. Tyson just keeps playing them. He's had eight months to plan this out to his own twisted perfection. He's playing them, playing her.

There's a knock on the glass, and Kate welcomes the opportunity to get a change of scenery. She opens the door, leans against it. Her hands are still damp. The observation door opens and Ryan and Esposito come out, looking at her.

"Ryan found it." Esposito starts.

"Show me."

Ryan leads them back to the computer technician's dim office; Ryan's taken over the man's desk, watching digital video feed from the real estate office. He's also pulled up a rolling cart with a tv on it. A VHS tape is cued in the player.

"This is of the alley while we were all there." Ryan presses play and Kate watches the television screen until she figures out what she's looking at.

"There she is." Claire in a tank top and jeans, leaning against the brick.

Ryan points to a hatted figure just to one side of the brewery's front door. "Here's Tyson."

Tyson has a hand on her arm, like he's convincing her of something. She's tilting her head as if she's listening, just like Castle said she did.

"She's telling the truth about this then. He met her at the crime scene."

"And now look at this, clearer picture." Ryan swivels in his chair and calls up the computer's program. He's got the playback slowed down. She sees Tyson talking with Claire, looking comforting, entreating, entirely smooth. After awhile, Claire nods. They both are looking through the crowd to the officers. Claire gestures towards the technicians, and Tyson grabs her hand, presses it down as if he's trying not to attract attention.

"Okay, now watch this." Ryan slows down the playback a little more, nearly frame by frame.

The two turn, Tyson's jacket moving as he grabs Claire's hand. On his belt is a wink of chrome and gold, clearly visible on the video.

"My shield," Ryan says quietly.

"Shit," Kate says and sits up. "She's telling the truth. So what was she doing in Castle's building this morning? And if she just threw away coffee, like she says, then who was in my room this morning?"

The knot in her stomach twists.


	17. Chapter 17

Castle growls and jerks his head away. Tyson's sat him up on the floor, his mangled hands behind him now. The sadistic bastard laughs and eases back a little, but still too close.

"See the rope on your feet? Look familiar?"

Castle can't help but see it. Same rope. "I thought it was more fun for you to leave me alive. Knowing that I was the one who couldn't stop you." His damaged hands hurt so badly he tries not to even think about them, tries to block them out.

"Yeah, it was fun. But you know what's more fun? Pretending to be a cop and getting girls to do all kinds of nasty things." Jerry wriggles his eyebrows and laughs. "Also fun? Killing you and letting the lovely Detective Beckett find your body."

A violent rage roars in Castle's ears, but it only causes his hands to throb in agony. His face pulses hot, the blood trickling down his cheek.

"Yeah, I thought that might get you." Tyson leans in, so cool, so in control. "I've been digging up the dirt on the gorgeous Kate."

God, he wants to murder Jerry Tyson. _Don't let him get you, Kate_.

"I read about her mother's death. Did you notice what I did in the alley there? My little homage to her mother's killer, whoever he is. Guns are so. . .final though. I like to watch. Such lovely, exquisite bones in her face. What she might look like, when I squeeze-"

Castle kicks out, nailing Tyson's kneecap with one of Castle's booted feet. Tyson yells out, drops to his other knee, but the rope has dug so painfully in Castle's hands that his vision swims, the edges start going black.

No, no, no. Not right now. Castle pushes against the floor with his back and his hands-

_God, that hurts, Kate._

Gets closer as Tyson cradles his knee, kicks out again, all the force he can muster.

One of them screams.

_It might have been me, Kate._

He's practically right beside Tyson. His vision tunnels, his hands so painfully throbbing, on fire, burning him alive-

He brings a knee up into Tyson's nose, feels the spurt of blood and the crunch of bone. His head drops to the floor, watches Tyson's eyes rolling back, tries to move but can't-

_Can't, Kate. I can't._

Dark, his words hard to find, hands pulsing points of bright-hot pain washing darkness over him, waves of darkness.

_I hope I wake up first, Kate. I hope it's me._

* * *

><p>Beckett bursts back into the interrogation room. She flings open the case file, pushes the images at Claire. "What else, Claire? What did you do for him? I need you to tell me."<p>

"I don't know!" Claire cries, jerking away from the photographs. "I don't know. I can't remember all the things."

"Today. This morning. At the apartment building. Start there."

"It's got to be a cop. He's a cop, an undercover cop. I went there with coffee, and there were two cops in the lobby," Claire insists, desperation in her voice.

Kate leans over the table. "Claire. That's my friend Richard Castle's apartment building-"

"Richard Castle?" Claire says, her head jerking up. "Wait, what?"

"He lives there. What did you do, Claire?"

"Oh, God. I. . ." Claire's face looks jaundiced. "He comes into the coffee shop. Almost every day."

"Tyson hates Castle. Claire, he's trying to hurt Castle. Did you help Tyson? Did you help him?"

Claire covers her mouth with a hand. "I just. . .I just propped open the door. So he could meet. His contact. The police officer. It's supposed to be the police officer."

"You did what?" Kate feels her stomach drop.

"Propped. . .He said he was meeting his contact, had to sneak in. I was afraid the cops in the lobby were on the mob's payroll. So I did it. It was like, proof, wasn't it, those cops in the lobby?"

Kate grabs Claire's wrist, tightens her fingers. "What did you do? Claire, what did you do?"

"I propped open the roof door."

Castle.

Kate jumps up from the table so fast that her knee slams into it; she doesn't even feel it, bursts through the door to find Ryan and Esposito coming out of the observation room as well.

"Call Collins. Right now," Kate snaps, heading for her desk, for her phone. "Let's roll. You heard her."

She propped open the access door to the roof. So he could meet.

* * *

><p>Castle wakes up first.<p>

Rather, he manages to gather the frayed edges of his consciousness and pull them back together, just long enough, so that he can open his eyes. Tyson's face is in front of him on the floor, breathing noisily through a broken nose, still out.

Violence surges through Castle, but it only serves to make his arms pulse with pain. He needs to get up, move. He needs to move.

_Help me, Kate._

No telling how long Tyson will be out. Just move. Castle uses his elbows to tug himself back, cries out when his shoulders jerk. He needs to cut the rope linking his hands and feet or else he's never going to move anywhere.

Okay, okay. A knife. In his bedroom? Something with a sharp edge. A very sharp edge. In his room. Shit, he needs to not panic right now.

Crawl then. Can he do it on his side, like a sidewinder snake? Slither away. Castle contorts his lower body, manages to move a little, then lunges backward with his shoulders. He feels a pop and bites his lip to keep from screaming, tastes blood.

He curls up in pain, jerks when the rope catches him, yells. Shoulder. Fuck, his shoulder. He's popped it out of the socket. Oh God. _It's on fire, Kate._

The burble of a man breathing through blood, loud and nasty, wakes him up.

Tyson. Tyson is going to kill him this time. Castle's a man of words, and words might have saved him last time, but Tyson's had time to plan, to plot, and he's here for revenge.

He has to move. He *has* to move.

Castle has always kinda played the rich boy, pouted over a papercut, whined about a scratch. It's not because it really hurts; it's because he wants Kate's attention. No Kate now.

Thank God. Thank you, God; she's not here.

He clenches his teeth and slides his legs back a little more; the tension on the rope eases, and he gains another inch towards the doorway. He digs in with his knees to the floor, still on his side, still on top of the excruciating arm out of joint, then uses leverage from the floor to propel himself backwards.

He slides, fights himself to stay conscious. He's got white-hot agony riding along his shoulder. He has to close his eyes a second to breathe past it.

He lets himself moan. He's startled by the way his own voice sounds, ragged and deranged. He clenches his teeth again to keep the moan from building, from getting out of his control. He can't exactly see anymore; the pain has become colors, blackened rainbows across his vision.

A green dragon opens its mouth and breathes fire along his side, makes him gasp.

Not real. Not real.

Kate Beckett is *not* going to find his body in here. No.

He slides his knees with an arch of his back, clamps them to the floor, leverages his body again, another couple inches. Castle's in the hallway now, his hipbone digging into the threshold. He can't catch his breath. Every heart beat is a pulse of pain shattering his bones.

He hears the thick, bloody sound of Tyson's altered breathing, knows he doesn't have long now. He arches his legs back, clamps his knees, pushes back. Push back, keep pushing back.

The green dragon is a red-orange, angry blade, slicing at his ribs. He feels the blade sink between his bones, into his lungs.

_Not real, Kate. It's not real._

A rhythm now. Arch his back, leverage, push. Moving down the hall. Tyson breathing. Arch his back, leverage, push.

Something digging into his hipbone. His phone. His phone! No way to get to it though. And who would he call? Too late for Kate to get here in time. Collins is downstairs. He doesn't have Collins number.

But Kate does.

Stop and try for his phone, or head towards the study, and his safe in the floor, and his gun?

He likes it better when Kate is the one who's armed. He's the writer, not the bad-ass.

But he wants the gun.

He goes for the gun.


	18. Chapter 18

Kate tries his phone again. No answer. Collins isn't picking up. Castle isn't picking up. Her heart is thundering in her throat, panic has settled somewhere in her guts and twists, unrelenting.

It's just a magnification of the feeling she's had all morning since they brought in the coffee girl. Something wrong. Something very bad wrong. She should've listened to it instead of putting it off as foolishness, as girlfriend worry.

Girlfriend worry. They've gotten one date, one interrupted date, and some stupid flirting.

Oh God, Tyson is in Castle's apartment building. She knows it. She knows it.

She clenches the wheel harder, tosses her phone to Esposito. "Keep trying Castle. I think his phone is turned off; I don't even get ringing. Ryan, you keep trying Collins."

Ryan's still got the phone to his ear. ETA twenty minutes. This is worse than when she and Castle raced to his apartment, worried about Alexis. Worse, a hundred thousand times worse. Because she knows.

She knows what she's going to find.

* * *

><p>He's too slow.<p>

He's only half in the hall and half in the study when he hears Tyson groan and swear. Castle jerks his legs back, tries to maneuver himself around the open door. It catches on his torso. He twists, cries out in pain even as he hears Tyson getting to his hands and knees.

With a snarl of frustration, Castle jerks his knees forward, screams as the rope cuts into his mangled hands, wrenches his arm. But the door slams shut. Castle rolls into it, gasps as the pain in his arm slices all down his side, tears him open.

Tyson crashes into the door, cursing him on the other side. Frenzied. But Castle is nearly dead weight against the door, blocking him from opening it into the study. He laughs even as another jolt from Tyson against the door shoves hard against him.

Agony licks across his bones. Castle knows he's got tears running down his cheeks, mixing with the blood from his head, but he doesn't even care. His laughter sounds wrong. Another furious shove from Tyson has Castle moving forward an inch or so. He shoves back, using his knees for leverage again. He hears the door click closed.

The knob twists, another rough shove. He's got to stand up and lock the door.

_I have to lock the door, Kate._

This is the last of his strength. He doesn't have it in him to hold out against Tyson if it comes to a tug of war with the door. He's got to lock it. Then make his way to the safe. To the gun.

* * *

><p>Kate is the first one in the lobby, accosting the doorman. "Robert. Where's Collins? Where's the officer?"<p>

She startles him; he throws up both hands as if to ward her off. "He went upstairs. To help Mr. Castle pack up. He said it was taking too long."

"When? When did he go upstairs?"

"Like. . .an hour ago?" Robert shrugs.

"Ryan!" she shouts, turns her head to see the detective already at her side.

"Here, boss."

"Elevator. Espo, take the stairs. Fifth floor."

Esposito runs for the stairs, bangs open the door as she and Ryan head for the elevator, guns drawn. The car's on the first floor, opens as soon as she presses the call button. Ryan at her six, she sweeps the car, gets in. They ride up in anxious silence. Kate can't bring herself to speculate, to even speak aloud what might be going on in that apartment.

Her phone rings; she yanks it out. Esposito. "Beckett."

"I found Collins in the stairwell, third floor. Dead. Strangled."

"Shit."

"I've called for a bus."

"Leave Collins. Meet us up there."

The elevator chimes and the door opens on the fifth floor. Ryan sweeps the hall with his gun in both hands; she comes behind him and takes over point. She jogs down the hallway towards Castle's apartment.

His door is locked.

Ryan pounds against it. Esposito, sweaty and not a little out of breath, joins shoulders with Ryan and Kate and they go on three. The door remains solid.

"Wait. Step back." They clear the door. Esposito fires a few rounds into the doorframe, the door handle, until the wood splinters. Then they attack the door again; it groans and pops open so hard that it bounces back. Kate stops it with a hand, gun out, as they spill into the foyer.

She can hear screaming now, and a wild, deep growl of rage that makes her blood run cold. As one, Beckett and her team turn toward the long hall leading back to Castle's room, weapons out. Her heart is racing.

Tyson stands in the hallway, pummeling the door to the study. It opens an inch, slams back; Tyson howls again. His face is mass of flesh and blood, broken nose; Beckett raises her weapon.

"NYPD! On the floor!"

Tyson turns towards them, slurs an obscenity she doesn't hear, and lunges forward, shoulder down.

She drops him without a second thought; her gun echoing loudly in the sudden stillness of the apartment.

* * *

><p>"Castle!"<p>

He hears his name by his ear. He can't see. His hands are up against the door; he groans when it pushes against him.

"Castle? Castle. Come on, you gotta move. I can't get the door open."

That's the point, isn't it? He realizes his brain's fuzzy; thoughts slur and roll towards the holes, drop through. He can't catch them. The door pushes against him and he groans, his voice high and desperate, a little strangled.

"Castle. God, Castle, I can't get to you."

Good, good. _Means you're safe, Kate_.

The door shoves harder, and he yells, groans, hears someone sobbing but this time it isn't him.

"God, Rick, please. Please, baby, you have to let me in. I've got to open the door."

"Castle? I'm gonna shove on the door, bro. See if you can roll over when I push on it."

Is that Esposito? That means. . .where is Tyson?

"Tyson," he breathes, tries to blink away blood, pain, darkness. His arms are pulled so tightly behind him that his chest is going to burst. His heart is racing to get away.

"I got him; he's dead. Just roll away from the door, sweetheart, okay? Castle? Please." Kate doesn't sound too good.

He gets another great shove against his back, into his twisted shoulder, feels the groan pulled out of his throat, tries to move but can't. Esposito is stronger than him though; the door opens a sliver, a crack, a widening crack; Kate slips inside, falls over him.

"Rick. Oh my God, oh God, please." Her fingers feather his face; he wishes he could open his eyes to see her.

"Called me sweetheart. . ." His voice is that raw, uncontrollable sound again.

"Oh God, Rick," she whispers, her hands stroking along his arms, making him jerk.

"Rope," he says, his voice again that hoarse, stretched sound. She's already got her hands on his arms; he shudders and squeezes his eyes shut to keep from yelling out again.

"I got you, I got you," she murmurs, over and over. He feels her warmth along his side, wishes she'd get off him. It hurts.

"I got it, I'm gonna cut the rope, Castle, hang on."

The twisting barbed wire of agony that's been his constant companion suddenly eases, loosens, and a new pain flares to life in his extremities, making him gasp. And then she pulls his arms out from under him and he screams.

"Oh God, I'm sorry. Bus is on it's way. But I've got to move you away from door, Castle. They've got to be able to get in here."

"Kate," he pants, squeezing his eyes shut.

He feels her whole body clench around his, wet on his face. Is she crying?

"God, yes. Castle. Come on, help me. I need to move you. I'll call you anything you want, you hear me?"

He gets his eyes open, narrow slits, sees her face above his, agonized and afraid. He's never seen that look before; it's a new one. He doesn't like it. Why is she so afraid?

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispers, her mouth against his, her lips moving even as she kisses him. "I've got to move you."

With a terrible wrench, his body slides along the floor, back, Kate's arms under his armpits. He screams, blacks out just as Esposito and Ryan come through the now open door.

* * *

><p>Kate holds him, his body stretched out between her legs, arms around his upper chest, head next to his. Ryan is unwrapping the cords that bind Castle's feet. Esposito runs his hand down Castle's arm.<p>

"I think it's dislocated, Beckett. So ease up there."

Only then does she loosen her hold, a spark of fear racing down her spine. Castle is unconscious in her arms. She presses her lips to his forehead, closes her eyes to collect herself again.

"His hands are bad," Esposito says, still cataloging injuries. "Ligature marks on his neck. But his breath sounds are good. Rate heart's a little high. Beckett?"

"Yeah." She opens her eyes, sees Ryan and Esposito watching both of them with concern, like they don't know who to feel sorry for first. She straightens her spine. "Ryan, go show the paramedics up."

Ryan jumps up, slides through the crack in the door. Esposito is still hovering.

"Esposito. Go stay with Collins's body until the ME gets here."

"Kate-"

"Now, Esposito."

"You got it, boss," he says, but he doesn't sound convinced. He leaves her alone with Castle.

She crawls out from under him, eases his head down into her lap. She tries to avoid the arm hanging at a funny angle, tries not to look. His hands. His fingers, mangled and bloodied, curled up against his palm. She's afraid to touch them, afraid to make it worse.

"Castle," she whispers, not because she wants to bring him back to the pain, but because she needs to know he's really all right.

His eyes flicker open; he gasps.

"Hey, hey, Castle, I got you," she says, kisses his forehead, strokes her fingers along his cheek.

He groans, mouth open to catch his breath. She realizes that his tongue is bloody, bruised. Like he's bitten it.

"I know it hurts. We've got a bus coming. You'll be fine."

"Kate," he murmurs, closes his eyes.

"Yeah, I got you," she chokes. She shakes her head clear of tears and kisses his forehead again. Strange. His heart is racing, tripping, missing beats. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Taser," he pants, opens his eyes. "Watch out."

"We got him, Castle. I shot him. He's dead. Don't have to worry about him anymore."

He groans again, but he sounds breathless. "Good. . .good."

She presses her hand to his chest to check his heart, and he lets out a yelp, back arching.

"Castle?" Taser. He said taser. She opens his dress shirt, rips the buttons to get at his chest.

"Sexy," he croaks out.

She chokes on a laugh, more hysterical than amused, runs her fingers up his chest, pulling his tshirt up. He shivers, groans again, and she sees the two welts on his chest where the taser got him. The wounds weep with clear pus, his skin angry and raw.

"Hurt more like this, or less?" she says, holding his shirt up around his arms, keeping it away from the wounds.

"More," he gasps, eyelashes dark against his pale face. She remembers his dislocated shoulder.

"Sorry." She eases his shirt back down. "Looks. . .like he really got you, Castle." She takes his pulse with her fingers against his neck. Thready. Too fast. Skipping beats. She wonders how many volts were in that taser.

"Uhh," he grunts. "No kid-kidding."

She presses another kiss to his temple, brushes her fingers down his cheek. She can already hear the paramedics and the boys running down the hall, coming through the splintered front door. Thank God. She's not sure his heart can sustain this rhythm much longer.

Of course, neither can hers. "Castle?"

He opens his eyes, his chest heaving. His lips are blue.

"I love you."


	19. Chapter 19

He wakes in pain, an electrical current snapping through his bones like an shark attack. He gasps, opens his eyes, and sees troubled brown, a riot of hair, her concern etched like a tattoo upon her face.

"Kate," he croaks. Make them stop.

They pinch his nose, covering his mouth so he can't breathe. He gasps, feels them squeezing him, tries to raise a hand to knock them away. Kate is chewing on her lip; he can see where she's broken the skin; blood forms dark lines in the cracks.

He can't breathe. He gasps, tries to move his head away from the pinching hands, scrape them off-

"It's a mask, Castle. Stop. Please stop. You need to leave it on." She hovers close again, but doesn't touch him.

He can't make his arms work. He's tied down. Tyson. Tyson tied him down. Kate. Oh God, Kate.

"Run," he groans, tries to get her to leave. "Ty-"

"Just stay with me, Castle." She gives him a pleading look, then her eyes dart back to whatever she's watching. Has Tyson got her too? Is she not-

He finally manages to turn his head: confusion washes over him. Metal walls, bumping, a blur of hands, lines, the flash of uniform, white shirt, blue gloves-

"Still tachy," a man says, holds up paddles. "Throwing PACs."

Kate leans away from him. The paddles come down over his chest. Not again, Kate, please, not again-

He jerks, tastes metal and blood as the current shreds his nervous system. He feels flayed; he can't gather up his thoughts, can't move, can't understand why she's doing this to him-

* * *

><p>She paces. The ambulance ride was hell. Castle came to consciousness somewhere in the middle of it, looking confused and in pain, and the paramedics couldn't establish a regular heart rhythm. She can still see the look on his face when they shocked him, the accusation in his eyes.<p>

Her hands won't stop shaking. She buries her fingers in her hair, jerks it out of her face, sucks in a long, shuddering breath to keep from crying. Her elbows brush the doorway of the waiting room, but the nurse in the ER gives her another fierce look, so Kate turns back around, paces back to the cramped chairs.

She needs to get herself under control before Stanton gets here with Alexis. She's got Castle's phone in her jacket pocket; she had to call Martha on it and give her the news as well. Martha, thankfully, isn't here yet either. Kate's not sure if she can handle Martha right now. Or at all.

Kate's usually the calm one. Kate's the rock, the steady, unflinching police detective. She's got to get herself together. The paramedics were pretty nonchalant about it the whole ride though, even when Castle kept trying to raise his damaged hands and knock the breathing mask off his face, even when the heart monitor kept showing those ragged spikes, even when Castle's broken voice kept uttering those jerky, harsh, wordless cries as they shocked his heart.

It's going to haunt her for a long time. It's going to eat at her.

Oh, God, pull it together. She squats down in the middle of the walkway, buries her face in her knees, tries to breathe. Her feet flat on the floor, her body compact and swaying, Kate counts slowly backward from ten. She gets to zero and still can't manage it, so she starts at twenty and works her way down.

She takes a breath, lets it out.

She presses her palms into her eye sockets, squeezing her eyeballs under her lids, watches the explosion of green and pink rainbows in the darkness.

She stands up, drops her hands, blinks away the spots.

"Detective Beckett?"

She whirls around to find a man in scrubs, a stack of charts in his hand, kind eyes. "Yes?"

"You're the detective that came in with. . .Richard Castle?" he says, checking his notes.

"Is he ok? Can I see him?"

"Yes to both. Walk with me?" He holds a hand out, gesturing to the doorway that's defined the boundary line of her pacing. Kate eagerly steps forward, following the doctor through a central nurse's station, past curtains and rooms.

"How is he? What happened?"

"First off, I'm Dr. Patel, the ER attending. Mr. Castle is awake, and doing good. The taser stun temporarily re-wired his heart, gave it extra electrical pathways in the atrium. This caused his heart rate to jack up, work too hard."

"His lips turned blue."

"Probably, he wasn't getting enough oxygen. I know it looks pretty scary, but he really is going to be fine. Once we got a steady rhythm, we could give him a muscle relaxant and get his shoulder popped back into place. We've taped his arm against his chest until after the surgery. Then we'll put it in a sling. He really is going to be fine. And here he is." Dr. Patel pulls back a curtain; the sound of the rings in the ceiling track grates against Kate's raw nerves. "I'll let him tell you the rest."

Wait, surgery? But Dr. Patel leaves her at Castle's bedside, her hands clutched together. She takes in a ragged breath and studies her partner for signs of. . .of what? Dr. Patel isn't lying to her; Castle's eyes are open, his color looks good. But surgery?

He smiles, just to prove he's fine, and lifts his chin. "Get in here."

His voice is still raw, cracked sounding, and the ligature marks on his neck are vivid. But Kate slides into the curtained off area and comes to his bed, slides her fingers along his arm, avoiding his hands. "Are you okay?"

He gives a goofy nod. "They're gonna take me into surgery as soon as the surgeon is ready. Set the bones in my hands. They gave me some gooooood drugs, Kate."

Her lips twitch. She hangs on to his forearm but looks down at his right hand. Splints have been taped into place, lines drawn on the skin with black marker for the surgeon. His left hand is worse, she sees, his fingers still crooked despite the splints and tape and someone's best effort.

"Castle. Your hands."

"It'll be fine. Fiiiine. I promise." He is grinning at her, but his face is mottled with brilliant bruises. He sighs, his good mood switching abruptly. "But I want to touch you and I can't. Katie, it's not fair. After all that, I just want to feel you-"

She leans in and presses a hot kiss to his mouth, fast, urgent, not gentle, cutting off his drugged crazy confession, slipping her tongue past his lips, her hands stroking his cheeks, curling around his ears. When she breaks the kiss, he's a little breathless, but he gives her a dopey grin, his eyes slipping shut.

"Muuuuch better. I like that."

"I'm sure you do. You scared the crap out of me, Castle."

"Me too. Literally. It was gross. Soooo grossy-gross."

She frowns at him, confused, but he shakes his head and opens his eyes, like he doesn't know what he's saying either. Closes them again. His breathing slows.

"Castle."

"Yup, yup, I'm heeere." His eyes open, brilliant and a little glazed, a sweet, little-boy grin curling his lips.

"I'm glad you're okay," she says, letting her hands drop to her sides.

"You called me sweetheart." His eyes roll in his head, his head drops a little, tries to jerk back up. "I-I heard it. You can't take it ba-ack." His grin turns unto a deep, sad frown, his eyes open to look at her. "You sounded so scared, Katie, but still. . .I heard it." He sighs, deeply, his eyes drooping. "It sounded niiiice. Sweethea-"

She kisses him again to shut him up, her dopey, drugged up partner, brings her hands up to cradle his jaw. She feels the movement of his body as he tries to touch her, and she breaks away.

His arms are restrained to keep him from jostling his hands; the regret in his eyes is poignant. Something of reality has returned to his painkiller-induced happy place. "I wish I could touch you," he whispers.

A fat tear breaks free, slips down her cheek; she rubs it away fast. "Later. All you want. For now, let the drugs and surgeons do their job."

"Drugs and you," he says, sighing, his eyes losing focus for a second. "You're a better drug. Not sure if you're a better surgeon. Don't think I want to find out."

She barks a laugh and wipes another tear from her eye before it can fall. "Well. . .thanks, I guess. But I doubt you're going to remember any of this."

"Gonna remember sweetheart. Won't forget that, mo matter. Nooooo matter what. Hey, can *I* call you sweet-"

"Try it and you die, Castle."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she wishes she hasn't said them. He doesn't seem to realize, though. Just closes his eyes and sighs again.

She doesn't like it when his eyes are closed, not with those marks on his neck, the mangled look of his hands, the restraints velcro'd around his wrists. She leans in closer to him, strokes a hand along his shoulder, down his arm.

He opens his eyes, smiles tenderly at her. "Hey, there you are."

"I've been here, Castle."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

"They're taking me to surgery. Got to make my bones straight. In my hands."

"Yeah, I know," she says softly, leaning in close to press a kiss to his cheekbone.

"Make my hands straight."

"They will, Castle."

"It's good. It's all good." He sighs, shifts a little in the bed, looks troubled. "Can't move my hands, Kate."

"Yeah. Just for a little while." She has to bite her lip to keep from calling him sweetheart, just because she can, because he won't remember it, because he's as sweet and sad as a lost little boy. "Just until they fix them, Castle."

"But I got to. . .got to. . .do something. Need something."

"What do you need, Castle? I'll get it for you." She leans on his bed, watching his eyes under his lids, the slow slide of his tongue against his lip as he tries to collect his thoughts.

His eyelashes brush his cheeks, his lids draw up until he's looking at her. "Just you. Just need you."

She smiles at him, brushes her fingers down his cheek. She can feel the twitch of his arm against her thigh as he tries to reach for her.

He groans, some flicker of pain reaching his brain. "Ah. . .shit. This is bad, isn't it?"

"I don't know how bad it is," she says softly, honestly. "You're on meds for pain, Castle."

"I can't move my hands," he gasps, and his eyes are too clear, too much with her. She wonders if the medication is wearing off.

"I know, I know." She shifts closer to his face, presses her palm against his cheek. "You're going in to surgery soon, Castle."

"Oh God. My hands. That's not good. Kate. That can't be good." He lifts his head from the bed and looks down at his left hand; his face goes white.

She crowds his vision so he can't see. "Hey, hey now. When you're out of surgery, I'll be right there, Castle. I'll be your hands. Get you whatever you need. Anything. Until your hands heal, clean and straight, okay?"

He squeezes his eyes closed, his forehead suddenly slick with sweat.

"Castle?"

His lips press together, so tightly that the color bleaches out of them. He's holding his breath.

"Breathe, Castle. Breathe through it."

He lets out his breath on a whimper, and she jerks up. That's it. No more of this.

"Let me go get someone."

"N-no," he groans, tries to grab for her and gasps, his head coming up, body curling in pain.

"Okay, okay. I'm here. Castle. Stop, lay back. Your arm was dislocated; you can't try to move it."

He drops his head, closes his eyes. "Stay," he gasps.

At that moment, the curtain draws back and two nurses wheel a gurney to Castle's other side. Dr. Patel is behind them.

"His painkillers have worn off," Kate says, standing beside Castle. The nurses, one scrawny looking guy and a thick woman, start transferring the IV pole, the cords, then put the rail down on his other side.

"Perfect timing," Dr. Patel says with a smile. "We're taking him up to surgery. 7th floor. You can ride up with us on the elevator if you like."

She glances down to Castle, sees the ripple of pain coming and going in his eyes. "Yeah, okay."

"Once I get him signed over, I'll show you the waiting room on the 7th. Good couch in there." Dr. Patel pats her hand and then helps the two nurses shift Castle over to the gurney using the bottom sheet. "You coming?"

She watches them wheeling Castle away, heart in her throat.

"Coming."


	20. Chapter 20

He's jerked from sleep by a shout, his brain scrambled.

His mouth is thick and dry; a crack of his eyes reveals a blur of light and sound, two senses becoming one. He takes a careful breath in and feels no pain, just a deadening that resides in his chest and leaches outward.

Under that, his bones ache, all up and down his body. His jaw feels like he's been clenching his teeth all night. His arms are heavy; he doesn't feel much past his elbows.

His eyes open. The fuzziness gradually focuses into a body, a woman curled up by the door. He has to clear his throat a few times before his voice comes out, husky.

"Kate."

She jerks in the chair, startles awake. Even though his brain is mush, she looks bad. Haggard. "Ok?"

"What?" she says, rubs a hand down her face, then her eyes meet his and she softens. "Hey."

"Too far away."

Kate unfolds from the chair and comes to his bedside, placing her hand at the crook of his elbow. Her fingers are gentle against the skin there; he wishes he could touch her. She sinks down into a chair beside him, hands to herself now.

"Bad dream?" she says.

He clears his throat again, winces with the vibrations that travel to his arm. "That me yelling?"

She nods. "Couple times tonight. Doc said the anesthesia gives people pretty intense dreams."

"Don't remember," he says truthfully, can't help staring at her, soaking her in. "Saved my life."

"Almost didn't," she whispers and drops her head, rubs a hand over her eyes. "You saved your own."

"You're too far away," he says again, hears the hitch in his voice he's not proud of but can't stop.

She jerks to her feet, props her hip against the bed. "Sorry."

"Can't use my hands, you know."

She lets a smile flicker in her eyes, lifts an eyebrow. "And so?"

"You gotta do all the things I'd do. I remember something about you promising to be my hands." His chest is almost too heavy to breathe; unconsciousness tugs at him.

"That was a promise made under duress."

"Those are the best kind," he murmurs, feels his body floating away from him, like he's on a wave. "Bout to fall asleep. Come here."

She leans in closer, brushes her fingers along his forehead, pushing back the hair.

"Get in here with me," he mutters, struggling against the drugs. "Up here. Stay here."

"I'm here," she says softly. "Stop talking, Castle, and get some sleep."

"My hands want to kiss you," he says, and he knows it doesn't make sense but he can't figure out the right words to say. "You promised. . ."

She huffs a laugh against his cheek and leans in even closer, presses her lips against his forehead. "I'm not getting in the bed with you Castle. Not here anyway. Your shoulder was dislocated, your hands are in casts, and you're about to fall asleep."

"Not here? Other places then. Gonna hold. . .hold ya. . .yeah." He can't keep his eyes open any more.

"Sleep." Her fingers along his cheeks, passing over his eyes.

"Love you, Kate."

* * *

><p>She's talked with Alexis and Martha today, gotten it all arranged. She's updated the boys. She's had a long conversation with IAB about the shooting and has been cleared, pending a few days' mental health break. She's taken those days with relish, because it means staying up at the hospital more, but now that time is over.<p>

Castle gets out today. Her mouth is dry, but her hand is steady when she opens the door.

"Hey, now. Come to bust me out of prison?" he says, catching sight of her in the doorway. He's already sitting up, the sheet pushed down around his feet, his right arm in a sling and soft cast, his left hand in a plaster cast. He's wearing sweats and a plaid shirt unbuttoned, draped over his right arm. His tshirt has a huge hole that Alexis cut in the side so he can get it on over the sling.

"Yup. I told you I would, didn't I?"

"Must be love," he says, grinning back at her because it still makes her uncomfortable.

She narrows her eyes but heads to the bed. They have a deal, because his hands are encased in plaster for the next three weeks; they have a deal, so she will do all the touching for them both. She lets her fingers slide along his cast, to his elbow, then up his bicep, strokes her thumb along the skin.

"Hey there," he says softly, his eyes still a little dopey from the painkillers.

"Hey back," she says, lets her hand travel up to his neck, touching the bruises there with a feathering of her fingers. "How's it feel?"

"Better. Good drugs."

"Mm-hm," she murmurs, then finally, finally, leans in to brush her lips across his, softly, gently, trying not to start anything they definitely can't finish.

"Ah, that's good," he whispers when she breaks away.

"You dressed?" she says, standing up straight.

"If you want me to be naked, I can be. Quickly."

"Maybe later. What I want, Castle, is to get you the hell out of here."

"Must be something wrong with me."

She raises an eyebrow, a flutter of panic starting in her gut.

"I'd rather get out of here than get naked. I *must* be bad off."

She laughs, mostly with relief, and brushes the hair back from his forehead, smoothing her thumb over his eyebrow. She's not a touchy-feely person, but she's had to learn for Castle's sake. His hands are trapped by plaster.

"You ready?"

"So ready, Detective. Get me outta here." He swings his feet over the side, sways a second. She puts her hand up to his uninjured shoulder to steady him.

"Where's your stuff?"

"In that bag," he says, pointing towards the chair she bypassed. Kate grabs it, slings it over her shoulder, and turns back to him.

"Get going, Castle. Slowpoke."

"Give me a second, sheesh." He slides one foot to the ground, then the other, stands like he's got arthritis.

"Don't be a baby. Your legs aren't broken, just your hands."

"Meds make me dizzy," he whines.

"Likely story."

"Also, I just spent thirty minutes wrestling my pants on. All by myself, I might add. You never offered."

"I never will. Don't wanna see that." She's barely even paying attention to their conversation; she studies his every movement intently, waits for him to ease to a standing position, checks to be sure he really is okay.

"Never ends with you, does it?" He flashes a triumphant grin her way and shuffles forward. "Hey, look at me walking!"

"Most people at your advanced age *are* having trouble with that," she says back. "So it's a real accomplishment."

"Thanks, thanks."

Thing is, if she stops teasing him, she'll end up saying something stupid. Or something that commits her. What the hell, she's already committed. Still. . .this is how she handles things. This is the only way she knows.

Castle swings his head to look at her, delicately puts his left arm around her shoulders so that his cast hangs down.

"Jeez, that's heavy," she says, lifting the cast up with a hand.

"This is why I'm so slow."

"It's not 'cause you're old?"

"Laugh it up, young Jedi." He squeezes her neck with his elbow, stops her from walking out the door ahead of him, drags her a little closer.

"I thought you wanted to go," she murmurs, watching him, the light that shifts in his eyes.

"This first, now that I'm vertical." He tugs her closer with his arm around her neck, lets his lips brush across hers, waiting for permission.

She opens to him, feels the weight of his cast drop to her waist, knows that his fingers are twitching in their prison by the wince against her tongue. She presses a hand to his chest, steps in closer, lets the kiss take her mind off all the things she can't say, all the bad dreams she won't share.

He breaks first; she can practically feel the way his hands would be caressing her face, the gentle touch of his fingers. Phantom impressions.

"I do want to go. But I want you to stay with me, Kate. At my place. Please. Nurse me." He gives a little grin, but there's neediness in his eyes.

She's promised to do all the touching, promised to be his hands, promised him anything. He doesn't remember all of that, but she does. She remembers sliding through his study door to gather him up, remembers almost losing him in the ambulance ride over, remembers the way his voice sounded when he cried out in pain.

These are the things they haven't talked about, and won't. He says only that Tyson was waiting for him in his bedroom, that Tyson got the drop on him with the taser, but he doesn't say what else he might remember from that morning. He doesn't say how he got the ligature marks, doesn't say why she found him in the study with his hands mangled and tied behind his back.

He remembers enough though. She sees it in his face when he wakes up from a dream, sees it in the moments she catches him staring at her, off-guard.

And she's pretty sure that he remembers telling her that he loves her too, but he's been nice enough not to bring it up again.

He's still waiting for an answer.

"All right."

He grins, leans down to kiss her again but she backs up, breaks his meager hold anyway. "No more of that until we get home. And then. . ."

Castle, instead of giving her another leer, instead sighs, closes his eyes. "Home. That sounds good."

It does. It sounds like the only place she wants to be.


End file.
